The Queen's Telepath
by Sophie Myst
Summary: At the age of eight, Sookie is the sole survivor of an accident that kills the rest of her family. Not long after, she and Gran are taken in by Sophie-Anne LeClerq, vampire Queen of Louisiana.  Rated M for concepts and language.
1. Prologue

A/N: Before you panic and think, _ye gods, she's starting another fic that she'll never finish_ - this one's already done. I won't be posting all of the chapters all at once, but I haven't yet decided on a posting schedule. It won't be once a week, but it won't be once every 12 hours, either. Somewhere between the two. Enough with my blathering! On with the story!

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><p>My name is Sookie Stackhouse, and I've been the Queen's telepath since I was eight years old.<p>

When I was eight, my parents took me to see a "specialist" in New Orleans. After that, a whole lot of things happened; those events were unrelated, but they so traumatic and in such rapid succession that they really did a number on my memory. For the most part, I only recall the "on paper" versions of what went down; I don't remember the actual events.

Honestly, I figure it's for the best: what purpose would it serve to remember having watched my family—both parents and my older brother, Jason—drown, while I survived? As far as I was concerned, it wouldn't do me a damn bit of good.

They later told me that we'd had the misfortune of being on a bridge when the river under it flash-flooded. The truck we were in was swept into the river. I don't know how I alone managed to escape, but when I woke up in the hospital three days later, my family was already buried. The doctors hadn't been able to determine when—or if—I was going to wake up; I think Gran—my paternal grandmother—just wanted to get the funeral over and done with. I couldn't blame her for that; she's a tough old lady, but no one should ever have to bury their child. Or their grandchild, for that matter.

I vaguely recall there being some fuss about the amount of time the doctors felt I should stay in the hospital, but Gran wasn't real keen on the idea, whatever it was. I definitely remember that she didn't want to let me out of her sight anytime soon afterward. So when she was contacted by the special "training school" that my parents had enrolled me in just before their untimely demise, she wouldn't let me go unless she went right along with me.

We didn't find out until were already in the Queen's palace in New Orleans, our bags almost completely unpacked, that we'd been tricked. There was no special school for freaky kids like me, just a bunch of vampires who were more than willing to take on two humans if it meant they could have their own telepath.

While Gran and I initially resented Queen Sophie-Anne for having deceived us, over time we agreed that it had all been for the best. The palace lawyer, Mr Cataliades, made sure that we were well-protected by the terms of my contract. I was paid very well, indeed: if I ever had children, their kids could happily live off of the inheritance.

It was all fairly confusing at first, but once the papers were signed, Queen Sophie-Anne was very up-front with us about the fact that not only did vampires exist, but she herself was one. Gran and I took that part fairly well: if telepaths existed, why not vampires?

Vampires were just the tip of the iceberg; there were loads of other races out there. Or so I heard, anyway. I only ever really saw two different races other than vampires.

The palace employed werewolves as daytime guards. They were usually just referred to as Weres, while other were-creatures were referred to as their specific type. I'd heard of a few were-tigers and were-foxes, but I only ever seemed to meet Weres. Aside from the occasional human, they were all I had to practice my telepathy on. They were a bit harder to read than humans, which meant I got really good at sifting through their rather snarly thoughts. They were also easier to block, so I didn't have to focus so hard on my shields when I was around them.

Then there was Mr Cataliades and his nieces, Diantha and Gladiola; they were demons. If Diantha and Glads had been around more often, we might have become really close; as it was, they only came by the palace once every few months, and there was no way for me to keep in touch with them when they were elsewhere. When they were there, we all hung out and got along famously. I didn't have to work on blocking any of them either, because all I ever got from their brains was a low-level humming noise. It was kind of soothing, actually.

All of my mental muscles were honed and trained in one direction. I could read just about anything—vampires being the most important exception to that rule—but I had trouble keeping anything out. Gran once likened me to a gator: they could snap a man in half when they closed their jaws, but you could keep those same jaws closed with a weak rubber band. I wasn't sure how I felt about having my mind compared to a gator's mouth.

Humans had no idea of what sorts of folk were lurking right under their very noses. Every few years, there would be talk about one of the supernatural races announcing their presence to the human world, but it never happened. I was fairly convinced it never would. One of the things I did recall quite well of my pre-palace life was that humans didn't take too kindly to folks from the more unusual walks of life. Even as a child, my odd habits of answering unspoken questions tended to frighten people. They hadn't even questioned my humanity, and they were still scared of me. I didn't see them reacting well to folks who weren't even _human_.

The vampires' acceptance of me was at least part of why I came to love them; the other main reason was that I couldn't hear their thoughts. Hanging out with vampires was as close to "normal" as I could get. But I hated all of their rituals, their politics, all of their pomp and circumstance. Bless their unbeating hearts, they took themselves entirely too seriously.

Gran's feelings about vampires were a bit more complex: they protected me, but they wouldn't really let me leave; not that I _wanted_ to go anywhere. They used me, but they paid me. I know there was more to it than that, but she was good at keeping her secrets—even from me. I couldn't hear her thoughts easily, and she could block me without really thinking about it. When the Queen found that out, she had some of Gran's blood tested; while Gran turned out to be fully human, she was far more stubborn than most. That was the only explanation we could come up with.

After all of my testing and training—because it hadn't been a _total_ lie that I would receive special training at the Queen's palace—my job was to read the minds of any humans that the Queen interacted with. I did the occasional odd jobs for the vampire Sheriffs that ran the other four Areas within the state of Louisiana, but they always came to the palace for my services, and they never saw me.

I didn't need to be in the same room with a person to be able to hear their thoughts. If you ever get a chance to visit the palace, take a good look around: you'll see an average of two mirrors in every room. That myth about vampires not having a reflection is just that—a myth. Those mirrors aren't for vanity's sake. Chances are, you're being watched from behind at least one of those mirrors. It might just be a security camera, or it might be a security guard. It might even be me. Even if there weren't any humans around whose mind I needed to read, sometimes it was fun to be the proverbial fly on the wall.

Sophie-Anne went to a lot of trouble to keep anyone from knowing who or what I was. Her sheriffs knew that she had a telepath, and from what I heard, several other kingdom-states were aware of my existence. Every few months, a new rumor would be started about the Queen's telepath: he was an old man, she was a middle-aged woman, she was a small girl, or he was a teenage boy. He or she was American, English, Mexican, French, Canadian, Japanese, or maybe even Inuit. Mixed up in those rumors were the occasional random facts, just to throw people off the trail. For example, it was true that I had big blue eyes; granted, the other part of _that_ particular rumor was that I was a were-turtle.

There were times that I really hated growing up in the palace. I suppose that no matter the situation, every kid feels that way at some point. I was isolated, lonely; my only long-term companions were Gran, Sophie-Anne, and her vampire children. The cage might have been gilded, but there was no doubt that it was still a cage.

The only time I tried to run away, I was about thirteen. They didn't even have to go looking for me before I came running home, begging to be let in. It was too big and too _loud_ out there, with all of those minds that I couldn't help but hear. My mental shields were basically non-existent. I tried to work on them after my little adventure, but there wasn't much opportunity to practice; I couldn't very well try to block out the people Sophie-Anne expected me to be listening in on.

With grudging acceptance, I'd started to view Sophie-Anne and the vampires as the lesser evils.

I wanted for nothing, as long as what I wanted was something I could have or experience within the palace walls. I really did have mixed feelings about my inability to travel as far as two blocks away: I wanted to get out and see the world, but I figured all of the noise would drive me insane. Maybe even literally.

The official story explaining my presence in the palace was a small part of the larger truth: I was an orphan, under the care of my grandmother, who was one of the palace's cooks. That was good enough for most people. They didn't bother speculating about me or Gran any more than they bothered wondering about Jose, the ancient human gardener who was the only person allowed to take care of Sophie-Anne's prized roses.

Once I was 16, I was allowed to mingle more freely with other people; the story was then added upon by saying that I was one of the Queen's favorite donors. In fact, the story went that I was one of her favorites, and that only she was allowed to feed on me. No one else could take my blood unless she and I both gave permission. We never did.

While the regular donors seemed to enjoy the experience of giving blood, they could be glamoured. I couldn't; vampire mind tricks had no effect on me. So, to my way of thinking, who knew if the donors really liked giving blood, or if they were just gazed into finding it pleasurable? Knowing my luck, it would hurt like the dickens without that glamour.

Even though I was allowed to mingle with them, I quickly learned to not bother making friends with any of the donors. The ones that lasted any real length of time wound up with brains like Swiss cheese: still sharp, but full of holes. They'd know who they were and why they were there, but they tended to forget day-to-day things, like sharing lunch or watching a movie with the girl who no one knew was the Queen's telepath.

I don't want to give the impression that I was miserable in New Orleans. I wasn't. Not only were Gran and I taken care of, but when my Aunt Linda—Gran's daughter—was diagnosed with some inoperable form of cancer, Queen Sophie-Anne made sure she got better. Linda never knew she was cured with vampire blood; she was glamoured into thinking she'd participated in a series of painful and highly experimental drug treatments that they'd only just started using overseas. As far as she and her daughter Hadley were concerned, it was a miracle cure.

I also got a far better education at the palace than I ever could have gotten in Bon Temps, the little town where I was born. I had special tutors and teachers; there were no other children there, so my classes all went as fast or as slow as I needed. My instructors were, of course, glamoured within an inch of their degrees and diplomas.

Sophie-Anne and I got along well. I suppose she felt to me like some kind of older female relative, but with Gran being the only relative I could remember, I didn't have much basis for comparison. Every year, Sophie-Anne would give me something wonderful for my birthday. She didn't talk to me as if I were a blithering idiot, which was how most vampires tended to talk to humans. If she and I were alone, I could speak openly and without fear of repercussion. Since she had been turned as a teenager, I always felt like I could say anything to her: when I was a child, she was the cool older kid who I idolized; when I was a teenager myself, she was the only one who looked like my peer; by the time I was an adult, she was my Queen, and in some ways, the closest friend I had.

I never assumed the feeling was mutual. She was a vampire queen that all of the other vampires feared and respected. I was a kid. A kid who could read minds, sure, but a kid nonetheless. I never had any illusion of equality between her and I.

My anonymity was a mixed blessing. Since I was one of the Queen's humans, I was more or less left alone. Sometimes that was nice, sometimes it was lonely. That being said, I didn't have a lot of options: I found most humans exhausting. Having to read their minds for work was bad enough. I couldn't imagine spending much of my free time with them. Gran chided me for that, saying I shouldn't look down on anyone. It wasn't so much that I thought poorly of them, it was more that I couldn't be around them without getting migraines.

The only vampires I really spent any time with were Sophie-Anne and her children; they alone knew me for what I was.

Andre was aloof at best; he cared for his Queen and for himself, and in that order. When he and I had to interact, we were polite. We would never be buds, but we didn't hate each other.

Siegbert and Wybert were two Saxon brothers that Sophie-Anne had turned way back when. The Berts were fond of me, and I of them, but even after all of their years in the States, their English was horrid. They were sweet in their own strange way, like a pair of really dumb uncles who would just as soon smile at me as they would decapitate a prisoner. While they were nice to me, they weren't much fun to hang out with. They were better for protection than recreation.

In order to keep up the charade that I was one of Sophie-Anne's donors, I had to be seen mingling with them. Let's just say that the Queen tended to value beauty over brains. There would be no Proust-summarizing competitions with _that_ group.

From time to time, a visiting sheriff or a representative from another State would be invited to dine with the Queen. Whenever that happened, Sophie-Anne always made sure I was never picked. She was subtle about it, suggesting other donors who just-so-happened to not be me. She told one vampire, I don't recall where he was from, that I didn't taste very good, but she kept me around because I reminded her of her first kill. His response was to let out a nostalgic sigh and pick a dark-skinned boy for similar reasons. She told most vampires that I had little to no flavor, and was therefore only good as a "palate cleanser."

(Apparently there was some truth to that; while no one had ever tasted my blood, Sophie-Anne and Andre speculated that it would be almost entirely without flavor, since I had practically no scent.)

I have no idea what the palace vampires thought about these conflicting stories. I never asked. Maybe there was some code, clause or obscure vampire policy that required Sophie-Anne to come up with ridiculous excuses for visiting vampires to not dine on her favored donors. Given how possessive vampires could be, you'd think it would be perfectly acceptable for her to simply say, "Piss off, that one's mine."

Whatever the case, I was never bitten. No one ever really looked twice at me. The donors were all naturally beautiful, but they were still primped and coiffed to be fitting for royalty. In comparison, I thought myself fairly ordinary.

Of all the rumored descriptions of the Queen's telepath, the one thought to be most likely was that of a toothless old hag with frizzy hair, rheumy eyes and halitosis. In other words, absolutely nothing like me.

You'd think that such long-lived creatures might have had plenty of time to recognize that beauty was subjective, but no: most of them were pretty shallow when it came to appearances. If a vampire was unsightly, then they'd been turned because of some extraordinary skill they'd had when they were human. The Berts weren't the handsomest fellows, but they were fierce warriors, and loyal 'til their last ashes.

I saw so many beautiful vampires, I could almost get sick of them. Strange as that might sound, it's the honest truth: they were all beautiful, and all untouchable. Sophie-Anne told other vampires that she had no interest in sharing me. Privately, I got the impression that if she couldn't have my blood or my body, no one else would. It was an odd situation, because I don't know that she particularly desired me in a sexual way. She never came on to me or tried to seduce me. She just didn't want anyone else to play with her toys.

If she did have sexual designs on me, I couldn't tell. Since I couldn't hear vampire thoughts, I had to learn how to read the nuances of their body language. It wasn't easy, since they all came from so many different eras and cultures. An unfamiliar vampire was a closed book, but I got pretty good at interpreting the postures and minute facial expressions of the vampires within the Queen's court.

Again, the majority of them had no clue who or what I was. I watched them the entire time I was growing up, through the one-way mirrors. They were the actors in my own personal soap opera. I had my favorites, of course, just as there were others that I wouldn't mind never seeing again.

As a child, I'd openly stared at them from behind the safety of my mirrors; it was a hard habit to break whenever I was in the same room with them. It didn't really click, how I was supposed to act around them, until I watched the movie _Gorillas in the Mist_. The trick was to pretend like the vampires were all silverback gorillas: keep a deferential posture, avoid direct eye contact, and always assume that they're going to charge—at least until you learn to figure out when they're just bluffing and posturing. But even then: be respectful, if you want to keep your head.

Yes, I really did fancy myself the Dian Fossey of the supernatural world, except I didn't think they'd ever make a movie about me. I also hoped no one would murder me in my sleep. Still, the jungle wasn't an entirely inaccurate metaphor: it was definitely kill or be killed, drain or be drained. So far, I alone seemed to be an impartial observer, an innocent bystander. While my feedback about the Queen's non-vampire contacts was regularly requested and respected, I always figured I'd be forever separated from the dramas, simply because I always had been.

Logically, I supposed it would only be a matter of time before all of that changed.


	2. Gran

On the morning of my eighteenth birthday, I was woken up just as I had been every other birthday I could remember: breakfast in bed, and a serenade. Since she didn't normally approve of lollygagging about, being able to be lazy and hang out in bed was a special treat. But bless Gran's cotton socks, she couldn't carry a tune any better than I could.

I groaned and scrunched my eyes shut. Not because of Gran's singing: I was used to that. No, I'd only been asleep for a handful of hours, at best. Sophie-Anne kept me up until dawn; she'd said, "You strange humans only turn eighteen once, so you might as well enjoy it. I'd turn eighteen every year, if I could remember my birthday. I think it was in Spring..."

I guess that's the kind of statement that normal people would have found odd. But normal people didn't know any vampires, and statements like that only really made sense with vampire logic. Or mental patients. At times, even I thought there could be a frightening similarity between the two, and I was used to their ways.

In any case, I couldn't be too upset with Gran for waking me up: she was carrying a tray laden with blueberry waffles with homemade butter, grits, scrambled eggs, maple-smoked bacon, and a whole carafe of coffee.

It was bliss.

Every year, I swore I had no idea where I was going to put it all, and every year, Gran smiled when I practically licked the plates clean.

My stomach growled, and I could tell that this year would be no different.

"What time is it?" I asked, stretching carefully as I sat up.

Gran clucked in a sort of sarcastic sympathy as she set the tray down over my lap and sat down on the foot of the bed. I could tell she felt no pity for someone who lost sleep because she was up late partying. "Just a little bit before noon. What time did you get to bed?"

"The sun was coming up by the time I got to sleep. But Sophie-Anne said she didn't have any work for me today or tonight." I paused long enough to chew and swallow a mouthful of buttery waffles. "I do still have to hang out and be seen with the donors, though."

"What time do you think that'll be, dear?"

"Oh, not until way late. Probably not until after you've gone to bed. We'll have plenty of time together today."

Gran smiled, looking relieved. Her eyes took on a faraway shine, and her smile turned nostalgic. "When your dad was young, we'd celebrate his birthday by taking him into town for an ice cream cone. It wasn't as good as the ice cream I made, but something about _buying it_ seemed to make it special."

I sighed, trying to not sound too frustrated; I knew where she was going with this. This was one of many possible beginnings to a conversation we'd had countless times.

"Don't you sigh at me," she said, sounding less cranky than she usually did during these discussions. "You might be an adult now, but one look from me and you'll always be a _young lady_. You need to get out more, and you know I'm right."

"I'm not trying to be smart, but where would I go, Gran? We're in the middle of New Orleans. It's too loud out there. You remember what happened last time."

She gave me a flat stare. "_Last time_ was five years ago. You're not going to get any stronger if you don't practice. And how are you going to do that here, surrounded by vampires?"

"I've been practicing on the donors..."

"And you've told me," she interrupted, "that if their heads were any emptier, they'd implode from the vacuum."

I ducked my head slightly while Gran gave me the hairy eyeball. Guiltily, I kept my mouth stuffed with food so I couldn't respond even if I wanted to. She'd have been more mad at me for talking with my mouth full than she would if I tried to give her what she might think was a lame excuse. We disagreed on what constituted valid reasons for me to not leave the palace.

"Hmn. I'll fuss at you tomorrow," she eventually said. "For now, you can eat in peace. Come find me after your shower and then we'll figure out what we want to do today."

With that, she got up, kissed me on the forehead, and left me to my waffles.

Between having gotten only five or six hours of sleep and a belly full of Gran's birthday breakfast, the last thing I wanted to do was get up and out of bed. But birthdays were important to Gran.

We were a family of two, and in some ways, we were a culture of two: we were a pair of humans surrounded by vampires. After we moved into the palace, Gran insisted that we make up our own traditions and stick by them. Birthdays were a big one, at least partially because vampires tended to pay more attention to their deaths than to their births. In any case, rare was the older vampire who bothered to remember the exact dates for either of those occasions in their own life.

There was more to it than just thumbing her nose at our hosts. She wanted me to remember who I was, and where I came from. She always insisted that I was a second-generation miracle; the doctors had told her that she and her husband would never have children. Given how I felt about my telepathy, I was pretty certain that "miracle" skipped a generation.

Even so, I knew better than to deny Gran a birthday celebration. Reluctantly, I set the tray to the side, peeled back the covers, and got out of bed. Once I'd stepped into the bathroom, I closed the door behind me and started the shower. The water heated up pretty quickly, but I liked the room to be nice and steamy before I took off my nightgown. Once the mirror was properly fogged, I shed my clothes and got into the shower.

Because we'd lived so long at the palace, and because Gran was one of the favorite human staff, we had a fairly nice setup. Our suite of rooms was small, but sufficient. We each had our own bedroom and bathroom, small as they were. In between our bedrooms was a shared living room with a kitchen. Well, it wasn't so much a kitchen, as far as I understood the concept: it was a long closet that had a stove, a sink, and a refrigerator. No counter space. it even had folding doors, just like a closet.

As much as I liked having our own space, you could have fit the entire suite of rooms into one of Sophie-Anne's reception rooms, dining halls (which were strictly for appearances, mind you) or ball rooms. Still, we had a better set-up than the donors, who were set up with two people in a single eight by ten room.

Since I didn't really remember my life before the palace, I didn't have much basis for comparison on a lot of things. As odd as some of the people and occurrences within its walls might have been, it was what I was used to; I considered it all fairly normal. I grew up there; it was my home. I guess that was why I was able to take a lot of the regular shenanigans in stride.

Gran had a much more difficult time of things.

I didn't care when I slept as long as I got eight hours, preferably all at once. Since most of my job involved listening in on meetings that Sophie-Anne had with humans, I had to be awake during that time window that vampires and humans most easily shared: between sunset and late evening.

Try as she might, Gran couldn't adapt to a night-time schedule. She needed to be up with the sun. It was like her body had an internal alarm clock that wouldn't let her sleep past six or seven in the morning, regardless of how late she'd stayed up the night before.

I didn't like leaving the palace, and the times I did were so horribly memorable, I could count them on one shaking hand. I knew it bothered Gran how cloistered my life was. We didn't talk too much about it, because really, what could be done? I would never be able to live and roam freely in the human world, thanks to my telepathy.

Gran, on the other hand, got itchy feet if she was cooped up too long. She was allowed to go on vacations as long as she had a guard. Whether they were there to protect her or keep her from running off, we weren't exactly certain.

While she could have gone anywhere in the world, she only ever went back to her old farmhouse in Bon Temps. She told me it was where her heart was, and would be the only place she ever called home.

At first, there was some confusion about what she did when she was there. They didn't understand why all she seemed to do was bake, cook, and go for walks in the woods. Any food she made was left in a large freezer chest on the back porch. Casseroles, roasts, stews, and pies—all of them gone by the next time she came back.

It was Gran's own community kitchen. Bon Temps was a poor town, but anyone who was especially hard on their luck could come by the Stackhouse residence and get a meal or two from the freezer. It was something she couldn't really have done without the money we got from the vampires.

The vampires really couldn't fathom why she did it, and were highly suspicious at first. When nothing dire ever came their way because of it, they hushed their fussing. They learned that people showed up under the cover of darkness not because they were up to any mischief, but because they were too proud to be seen taking a handout, even if it was from an empty porch.

I had to admit, even I didn't quite understand why she went to all that trouble. I could understand wanting to help, but wouldn't it have just been easier to send some cash? I asked her about it once.

"Food is life," she had said. "To give someone food is to give them _life_. Anyone can give money, if they have it. Not everyone can give life—and it's not the same thing as giving _birth_; any damn fool with a working set of organs can take part in that."

As tempted as I was, I didn't have the nerve to ask her how that applied to vampires, who neither ate nor _technically_ qualified as living. Most likely, she would have squinted, peered at me over the edge of her glasses, and asked me if I was being smart.

I could kind of understand her point of view, after that. After all, everyone at the palace—all the humans, anyway—knew that if you wanted a good, home-cooked meal, you went to Adele Stackhouse. Comfort food, she called it. It stuck to your ribs and made you feel all warm and cozy.

There were other cooks there, but they were the sort of high-end chefs who wore spotless white jackets and came up with tiny, decorative meals on large plates. Those guys were nice, but only really ever made stuff for visiting humans who had no idea that they doing business with vampires.

Once I was clean, I stepped out of the shower and toweled off before putting on my robe. I stood in front of my closet, partially thinking about what to wear, but mostly distracted by trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my day.

When I was younger, we didn't have much access to popular media. The first year or three that I was with the vampires, they had wanted to keep us a bit sheltered from the outside world. I could tell Gran didn't like that one bit, but she never said anything out loud about it—not to me, anyway. She may have raised a fuss with Mr Cataliades, since he was in charge of my contract.

In any case, until that was straightened out, Gran and I were given special access to the palace's media archives. We could listen to music so old, it was stamped out on thick vinyl records that Gran called "seventy-eights." She said it had something to do with the speed with which they were played. We spent hours upon hours listening to records of the sort of music Gran had liked when she was my age. When we wanted more visual entertainment, we would watch old black and white musicals—as far as I was concerned, anything with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was fair game, whereas Gran was more of a Danny Kaye fan.

After a while, the palace eased up on our media restrictions; at least part of that was recognizing that they themselves needed to be better about keeping up with the quickly-changing times. Sophie-Anne—who I believe was roughly 1300 years old—said that the speed of invention and innovation in the 20th century was entirely unprecedented. For a vampire, keeping up with the times while not losing one's mind was almost a full-time job. I had never lived in a world without radio, or without television, so I tended to take it for granted. Gran could remember a time before television, and used to tell me stories of her parents and grandparents, and how radically their lives were changed by something as simple as a light bulb.

Thinking about those old movies and conversations had me feeling kind of nostalgic. That settled it. I picked out a nice sundress to wear, then left my room and found Gran reading a book in her favorite comfy chair.

"You look lovely, dear," she said as she looked up from her novel. "Have you thought about what you'd like to do today?"

I nodded. "Remember how, when I was younger, we used to watch a lot of old movies? I was thinking maybe we could watch some old Fred & Ginger movies and ruin our appetites with popcorn."

Gran smiled. "Just popcorn?" she asked, with a twinkle in her eye.

"Well," I said, drawing out the word as if I was considering the alternatives, "I suppose I wouldn't object to having chocolate, too."

* * *

><p>Gran called down to the guys who were in charge of the media collections, so that by the time we made our way to the small theater, the films were lined up and the popcorn had already been started. Apparently, a few decades ago, Sophie-Anne had been on a big movie kick, and she'd had the theater set up to resemble old style movie houses. The seats were metal and wood frames, with thick burgundy velvet padding on the seats. There was a concession stand that was kept stocked with all manner of snacks; even if she couldn't partake of them, she'd wanted it for two reasons: authenticity and keeping up appearances for the humans.<p>

Since the donors liked to pass their time here, the candy and popcorn were replaced as necessary, which meant that it was all relatively fresh. That being said, there was a package of black licorice Jujubes that looked suspiciously old-fashioned. I was oddly fond of black licorice, especially since one of the donors—a Swedish girl named Ingegerd, who had spent about two years at the palace before moving back to Sweden—had introduced me to the joys of salted black licorice.

In the end, Gran picked Junior Mints and I went with Reese's Pieces. You just couldn't go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate, especially when you were also noshing on buttery, salty popcorn. We had the option of drinking soda, but I'd never developed a taste for the stuff so we each just grabbed a big bottle of water.

Having gotten our snacks figured out, Gran and I settled into our seats and grinned at each other when the lights dimmed.

We liked watching things in chronological order, so we started out with _The Gay Divorcee_. After that, we took a small break; I went back to our suite to get extra pillows and a blanket while Gran went to the kitchen to cut up some apples for us. We reconvened and watched _Singing in the Rain_, one of Gran's favorites. From there we went straight on to _The Wizard of Oz_.

By the time we were done, I was fairly convinced that there were no problems so hideous that they couldn't be made better with a spontaneous song and dance number.

I straightened up after us and took our things back to our suite while Gran went to the big kitchen to get our dinner started. Any donors who happened upon us or remembered that it was my birthday would be welcome to join us, but given that sunset was quickly approaching, it was more likely that they'd be busy fancying themselves up for the evening.

We wound up having a nice, quiet dinner of country-fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and fluffy biscuits.

Just as Gran was halfway through her dinner, she put her knife and fork down and looked at me with a smile.

"When I was young," she said, "we didn't have much money, but my grandmother and I could always enjoy any meager meals we shared, simply because we were sharing them. We could be eating bread and cheese—and not enough of it, mind you—and she would turn to me and say, 'I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight.'

"It's not all this," she continued, waving her hand at the room, "that makes you rich, Sookie. It's not what's on your outsides, but what you do with what's inside you. It's what you share with the ones you love."

I smiled and grabbed her hand when she reached for mine. With a squeeze, I knew we both felt like the richest people on the planet.

* * *

><p>"G'night Gran," I said, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead. "Get good sleep, and dream well."<p>

Gran adjusted the covers on her bed as I sat back up. "Don't you stay up too late; you've had a long day today, and you do need to sleep on occasion."

I nodded, knowing that how late I stayed up was just as likely not anything I had any control over. In any case, that's what naps were for; I preferred to sleep in long stretches of time, but I could make do with naps, when necessary. As I left Gran's room, I closed the door behind me.

Knowing that some vampires might not appreciate the smell of popcorn, I went back to my room to clean up a bit. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on an entirely different set of clothes. Gran liked to see me in sundresses—the kind of thing she figured I might wear if we still lived in Bon Temps—something that Sophie-Anne thought other vampires might find too appealing. She didn't want me to stand out too much from the donors. Since it was summer, shorts and a tank top were as safe a bet as any. The temperature inside the palace rarely varied, but I thought seemed appropriate to wear clothes in keeping with the season.

The donors, on the other hand, always dressed like it was summer, since that meant they'd show more skin. Vampires weren't so keen on turtleneck sweaters.

Dressed in a fresh new outfit, I made my way through the palace and headed towards Queen Sophie-Anne's reception room.


	3. SophieAnne

I opened the door just enough to squeeze through. If there was anything important going on, I didn't want to interrupt or draw too much attention to myself.

It appeared that either Sophie-Anne had cleared her schedule or there really was nothing going on. She was sitting on a couch, flipping through a glossy magazine. The donors were sitting off to the side, in their usual area.

Sophie-Anne redecorated her favorite reception room every few years, but it had only been in two different styles since I'd been living there. When I first arrived, it had been done in a vintage art deco style, something that she felt was going to come back into fashion. It did, but only for a fairly short amount of time. After that, she'd gone the simple yet elegant route, and it had stayed that way ever since.

She'd sworn off any sort of carpeting decades ago, staying that it was too much bother to maintain—blood stains were such a bore. Instead, she went with a light marble flooring and put down hand-woven rugs to help keep the sound from bouncing.

The room was large and open, but there were different informal sections. Her desk was in the very back and center of the room. Front and center were her couches; she frequently sat there and read magazines while I sat nearby. Off to one side were some extra comfy chairs and love seats arranged around a fireplace; that was where the donors tended to hang out. On the other side were mostly bookcases.

There were two doors in and out of the room; the main one was at the front of the room and led into the main hallway. The door at the back of the room tended to attract less attention when people came in and out of it. It was only really accessible to people who lived at the palace; in any case, that was the door I used more often than not.

Once the door closed behind me, Sophie-Anne bared her teeth, her fangs flashing as she looked up. The corners of her mouth turned into a smile seductive enough to match the heat in her eyes.

Her reaction was not lost on anyone in the room; it was the reaction most of the donors wanted from her, the reaction they primped, preened, and competed for. I ignored everyone else as they turned to stare at me, but slowed my stroll in the Queen's direction, making sure my walk was a little bit more relaxed, a smidge more confident. It's all in the hips.

When I reached her side, I dropped to my knees and bowed my head, thankful that my long hair hung in such a way as to keep the rest of the room from seeing the smirk on my face.

Sophie-Anne gently patted her knee before turning back to her magazine. I lay my head down on her thigh. With a low, pleased purr, she began stroking my hair. Her fingers idly ran through my tresses, her nails occasionally scratching my scalp.

As it usually did, this had me almost dozing off after a few minutes. I let my mind wander, feeling the tendrils of my unusual awareness slipping silently into the minds of the humans and Weres around me.

I tried to practice sorting them out, to only listen to one voice at a time while blocking the others. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Tonight? Not so much. I relaxed and just let the white noise of their thoughts wash over me.

We sat like that for a while. At one point, I felt Sophie-Anne shift just enough to pick up a different magazine. Just as she had started to page through it, one of the double-doors that made up the main entrance of the room opened. I couldn't see who it was from my odd vantage point, but the Queen didn't nudge me or tell me to get up.

"Northman," she said, acknowledging him and giving him permission to speak.

"Majesty," he replied. I could hear the urgency in his voice as the two of them began conversing in rapid-fire French. Whatever the issue, she sounded bored; it couldn't have been that big an emergency. Still, it was early enough in the evening that he had to have flown to have gotten here.

The vampire kingdom of Louisiana was divided into five territories, called Areas. As well as being the Queen, Sophie-Anne was the sheriff of Area One — it saved her on red tape and paperwork, she'd said.

Eric Northman was the sheriff of Area Five, which was all the way at the top end of Louisiana. From what I'd heard, it took about five hours to drive from one end of the state to the other, and there were nights that he managed to show up only two or three hours after sunset. Word was that he could fly—without the aid of a plane or helicopter.

When I was quite young, he'd stuck out of the crowd for two reasons: the first was that Bon Temps, the town where I was born, was within his area; the second was that he was insanely tall. To my young eyes, he had looked like someone had grabbed him by the head and feet and then pulled, stretching him to an unnatural height.

While I was familiar with him from having watched the vampires through the mirrors, this was the closest I had ever been to him—at least, without a pane of glass between us. To the best of my knowledge, he hadn't ever seen me until well after I'd started sitting on display with the donors. Even then, I seriously doubted he'd noticed me.

All this time, Sophie-Anne had continued playing with my hair; the unfamiliar language, jarring at first, blended with the rest of the noise in my head. Again I dozed slightly. I didn't even notice when their conversation slipped back into English.

I was so relaxed, I had little to no visible reaction—I hoped—when I finally realized that they'd been talking about me.

"I can tell she's awake," Northman was saying, "But she... is she deaf? Most humans flinch or twitch at least a little when you start talking about them."

Sophie-Anne laughed. "She is neither deaf nor dumb. Are you, Sookie?"

"No, Your Majesty," I responded.

"She is young to be so well-trained." There was a hint of awe in his voice; I wasn't sure if it was intended for me or Sophie-Anne. I suppose either way, the credit would go back to her.

"Sookie's grandmother cooks for the donors. Their blood has been richer since I brought her on; somehow, the food she makes seems to enhance their natural flavors. In any case, the child had no other family, so she was raised here. She is more familiar with our ways than those of her own kind."

"Fascinating," he said slowly, sounded as if he honestly meant every syllable. "I've never heard of such a thing. These are very different times we're living in." He was quiet for a moment. Though I couldn't see either of their faces, I could feel the weight of their gazes upon me. When he next spoke, it was in French. By the tones of their voices, I sensed I was no longer a subject of discussion.

As their conversation progressed, they seemed to have moved on to non-business topics; their tones were so much more casual. If it was anything I needed to know, Sophie-Anne would fill me in later.

When she tapped me lightly on the shoulder, I lifted my head from her lap. Unable to resist, I peeked through the curtain of my hair. Northman was staring at me. He probably hadn't seen Sophie-Anne tap me; maybe he thought I was taking liberties. Whatever the case, she stood up and walked to her desk. Northman must have realized that I was watching him; he winked at me before turning to follow our Queen.

She pulled something out of one of her desk drawers and handed it to the sheriff. He took it, turned, and left the room—and presumably, the palace—without further word.

"Sookie," Sophie-Anne called. "Come."

I stood up and fell in line behind her as she led us into a small, secure side-room. It could sometimes feel claustrophobic in there, as there were no windows, mirrors, or any other visible doors. In the center of the room was a large four-poster bed; there was no mistaking the purpose of this room. The only thing out of place was a large, climate-controlled safe. I watched as Sophie-Anne unlocked and opened it to pull out a bag of blood.

After snipping off the tip of the tube at one end (the "built-in straw," as she called it, but I doubted that was the intended purpose), she sat on the bed and drained the entire bag in a matter of seconds. I took the empty bag and pushed on a secret panel to open a small door that led to the incinerator in the basement. That was the standard procedure for disposing of all blood bags within the palace; that sort of thing couldn't be easily explained to any humans who might find it. Sure, they could be glamoured into forgetting it, but the vampires had long since learned that you could only glamour a human to forget something if you were aware that they'd ever learned it in the first place.

Not all of the rooms in the palace had those secret incinerator chute doors, but in this room it was absolutely necessary. No one could know that Sophie-Anne was drinking from blood bags instead of from me, since I was supposed to be her favorite donor.

If had no visible bite marks, that just implied that she'd bitten me in places that were covered by my clothes. No vampire would dare try to check for hidden marks on me. And if I didn't smell like sex or blood? Well, my having no scent was nothing new.

As far as most of the members of her court were aware, I was Sophie-Anne's favorite pet, the first (but not the only) one she came to when she wanted sex, blood, or both. That she had sex with and drank from others only served to demonstrate that she was a vampire of voracious appetites. That I exhibited no signs of jealousy at her lack of monogamy only showed people that I was a well-trained pet—another thing she could take credit for.

All of this meant that she was that much more admired and respected, and my secret was safe.

"He wants you, you know."

"What?" Startled out of my thoughts, I was momentarily confused. "Who?"

"The Northman. He wants you."

"Oh," I said, not entirely sure where she was going with this, or how to respond. I flopped, stomach-down, on the bed. When I looked up at her, I saw that she was waiting for me to say something else, based on the expectant look on her face. "What?"

"You're an eighteen year-old virgin. Or at least, he thinks you've never been with a _man_. Back when I was a human, that would mean you were doomed to die an old maid. Actually, that probably meant there was something so hideously wrong with you, a desperate man wouldn't fuck you with a borrowed dick. I'm fairly certain that's not the case with you."

I snorted. "You think I should have sex with _Northman_? He's a giant! He'd probably break me in half. And besides... you're not exactly known for sharing."

She was quiet for a moment. I looked over at her; I could tell by her posture that she was upset about something.

"If I was going to share you with anyone, it'd be him. Aside from my children, he is the most loyal and trusted vampire in my retinue. Well, I suppose I'd share you with Andre, if he were interested."

"I'm not a redhead," I said, grinning, "so I'm hardly Andre's type."

"Hmn. You're Northman's type, though."

We were back to that? I wasn't sure of the point of this conversation.

I was the Queen's secret telepath. In public, I was her pet. She never shared her favorite toys. We had to keep up the pet ruse to explain my near-constant presence around her. All of this added up to a whole lot of "not bloody likely" when it came to my having any sort of romantic—or even merely sexual—interactions.

I had been prepped for this for the last ten years, which was just about all I could remember of my life. Part of that process was coming to the understanding that I would never, as Gran might put it, "be my own woman."

I'd never gone to high school or prom. I'd never had a boyfriend or a first kiss. I'd probably never get married. I'd almost certainly never have kids.

I suppose if I were attracted to women, I might feel differently about my romantic prospects. I could find both genders attractive, but I'd only ever found myself attracted to males. Sure, I'd had crushes as I was growing up, but they were all on males.

Then again, Sophie-Anne _acted_ like she wanted me sexually. That was one of the aspects of body language—how people reacted to me specifically—where I wasn't familiar enough with it to know if it was more than just an act. I have no idea what I'd even do if that proved to be the case.

"It's your breasts," she said, rather unexpectedly. "He loves breasts. I could tell he wanted to know if yours were as perfect as they appeared."

My eyes widened; I'm not sure if I was capable of blinking in surprise. "You were talking with him about my breasts?"

"Oh, _now_ you're curious. We talked a little about you. Not about your breasts, though. Those, he just stared at."

I couldn't figure out why that made me blush. Sex was more common than eating around the palace. I didn't have to be able to read the vampires' thoughts to know that they were very sexual creatures. There were more than enough memories from the donors' minds to keep me from having to use my imagination on that front. I may not have had sex, but I didn't think I was exactly a prude.

"Um... okay," I stammered.

"Wow, you really do suck at this. No wonder you're a virgin." I raised my eyebrows at that; while I technically could have sex with anyone I wanted, it wasn't in my best interests to do so. Not if I wanted to keep my secret. She let out an impatient sigh and continued talking. "You're supposed to ask me what he said about you."

I snorted. "_Riiiight_. Do I need to let our a girlish squeal, while I'm at it?" We'd had similar enough conversations before; it wouldn't surprise me if she suddenly requested sound effects.

Sophie-Anne rolled her eyes, but then seemed to take my question seriously. "You know, I don't think I'd object to hearing that sort of noise from you."

Not entirely sure what to make of that statement, I ignored it. "So what'd he say about me?" I asked, playing along.

"Honestly, you really did hear most of it. The only thing he asked me in French was if I was going to be bonding with you. I told him it wasn't outside the realm of possibility."

I grimaced and quickly wiped the expression off of my face. I knew my contract stated that once I was eighteen, I could be bonded to one of the vampires in Sophie-Anne's trusted circle.

Basically, as long as I was a minor, Sophie-Anne was one of my legal guardians. Now that I was an adult—in the eyes of the state, anyway; anyone whose age was in double digits was still a squalling babe in the eyes of most vampires—she needed to be able to maintain some control over me.

I wasn't entirely sure why a contract wouldn't be enough; it had been sufficient for the last decade. Besides, it all came back to the question: where the hell did anyone think I was going to _go_? It was like saying "stay" to a dog who was curled up by a warm fireplace. There was no reason for the dog to move, so telling it to _stay_ seemed rather pointless.

"As I was saying last night," Sophie-Anne said, "the problem with bonding with a telepath is that as far as I've been able to find out, it's never been done. For all we know, it may not even be possible. You, my dear, are extremely unusual, if not entirely unique. So little is known about your gift: where did it come from? Even my finest trackers can't pick up a hint of any other race in your scent—what little of it there is—but we can't just assume that you'll react to a bond the same way any other human might."

"Would it be easier to figure out if someone tasted my blood?" Not that it was something I was eager to sign up for. I mostly just wanted the whole thing to be over and done with, with as little fuss as possible.

Sophie-Anne smirked. "We don't even know that much. Vampires can drink human blood with no problems. Bring another race into the picture, and things get... _interesting_."

"Interesting? How so?"

"Fairies are delicious, and even the scent of one can drive us to bloodlust; you don't have any scent, so you're in no danger of that. Most of the demon variants, their blood will make us sick; not fatally so, but it can be quite painful or even incapacitating. Now, their blood usually has a sulfuric odor, but there are some subspecies that—like you—don't have any scent to speak of."

I blinked. Was she saying she thought I might be part demon? "We've gone over my genealogy with Gran; I _am_ human, just a weird one. So, back to the whole bond thing: how do you think I might react differently?"

"There are a number of potential outcomes that would be relatively inconsequential, but one big one that would be a complete game-changer. We don't know if bonding with a vampire would enable you to read that vampire's mind. If that turns out to be the case, there are only two ways to save your life: kill the vampire, or turn you. Actually, probably both. But we have no idea if the gift would survive the transition; either way, it would be... problematic."

Stunned, I sat up and stared at her. She wasn't kidding: that was huge. It was no secret that if I had been able to hear vampire thoughts, I wouldn't have survived to see my ninth birthday. It would have been too great a risk. I hated it, but I understood the reasoning behind it.

Did this mean I wasn't going to have to bond with her? My thoughts and feelings were at odds on this. Intellectually, I figured it made a kind of sense to go through with it. There would benefits to my side of the bond as well as hers. Emotionally, I didn't like the idea of bonding with _any_ vampire. I didn't have much in the way of independence, so I wanted to cling to what little of it I could.

Overall, and up until this point, I'd looked at it as a necessary unpleasantness, like I'd heard most people felt about trips to the dentist. But now that it was no longer a remote possibility, no longer something relegated to a "someday" time frame, I was decidedly uncomfortable with the whole thing. _Especially_ with this new twist.

"Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty huge problem," I said, stating the obvious in hopes that she'd come to the same conclusion: that I shouldn't be bonded to anyone.

"It is, but I may have found a way around it."

I cringed internally, hoping it didn't show one my face or in my voice. "Oh?"

"Sure. All we need to do is have you exchange blood with one of the more expendable vampires in my court. That way, if we find you can read their mind, we kill them instead of you."

She'd spoken so matter-of-factly, I wasn't sure how to react or respond. Of course I didn't want to die. But I didn't want to be responsible for anyone else's death, either.

"And what if I can't read their mind? I don't want to be tied to some random vampire at the bottom of your totem pole."

"If you can't read their mind, then what we do depends how many exchanges we tried. If it's not permanent, I send them away until we're absolutely sure it's worn off. Once we find out how you react to an exchange, we go from there."

She knew me well enough to read the hesitation and uncertainty in my body language.

"The only other alternative," she said, "as I mentioned earlier, is to have you and I try it. But if you were able read my mind, then I would have to turn you. I don't like the possibility that we might lose your telepathy altogether in that process."

As much as I didn't want to be a vampire, I would probably spontaneously combust with joy if I suddenly lost my mind-reading abilities. Given the numerous ways that would offend Sophie-Anne, I refrained from sharing that particular thought.

I was between a rock and a hard place: I didn't want anyone else's life to be screwed up—or taken away altogether—because of me, but I was rather attached to the idea of staying alive. No matter how I felt about any of this, I was obligated to go through with at least some part of this process.

Or was I?

"I'll have to run this by Cataliades," I eventually said. "Just to make sure it doesn't invalidate any parts of our contract."

"Of course," she said, smiling. "I would have done so already, but I knew you would feel better if you spoke to him yourself."

* * *

><p>I was able to get a hold of Mr Cataliades that night, but he was out of the state on business. It was never assumed that phone lines were secure; quite the opposite, actually. That was why so much vampire business had to be conducted in person.<p>

People knew about vampires, albeit only through myth and legend, but most people didn't really believe that they existed. Anyone in the supernatural community, underground as we were, knew for a fact that vampires were real. But telepaths were shrouded in mystery. Even though it was stated as fact that the Queen had a telepathic advisor, there were a number of people who didn't believe it. They thought it was a rumor intended to frighten her subjects.

Needless to say, if we couldn't talk about vampires over the phone, we certainly weren't going to talk about _me_ there, either.

Mr Cataliades let me know that he would be by the palace after sunrise. He would meet with me during the day. Most of his clients were nocturnal, so anyone who could stay awake during daylight hours, he preferred to see when the sun was out. Also, it meant we were guaranteed a certain amount of privacy—as much as was possible within the palace walls, anyway.

As a side note: I have no idea when he slept. Maybe demons didn't need to sleep.

Once he and I were off the phone, I let Sophie-Anne know that I'd be meeting with him soon. She said that was fine, and let me know that I was welcome to spend the rest of my night as I pleased.

Since I would have to be up at least a little during the upcoming day, I decided I would take a nap. If Gran were still awake, I might have hung out with her for a bit. Since I knew she was already asleep, I made sure to be quiet as I went through our suite and into my own bedroom.

If there was nothing else I'd learned in the last ten years of living with vampires, it was to not pass up a single opportunity to take a nap. Ideally, I wouldn't need _any_ sleep—then I could be up with Gran all day and still be able to keep up with the vampires all night. And if wishes were horses, as Gran would say, then beggars would ride.

As I changed into a comfy shirt and pair of pajama pants, I let my thoughts wander. I know I should have been thinking about what I wanted to discuss with Mr C, but my brain refused to stray from the other subject Sophie-Anne and I had talked about: Eric Northman.

I was used to the facade of being wanted by Sophie-Anne. Granted, she really did want my telepathy, but that was different. And the idea of being physically desired—by a man, no less—was just... odd. He was undeniably attractive, and the fact that he might be attracted to me just made him seem even more handsome. I flopped down on the bed and closed my eyes, seeing him wink again at me in my mind's eye.

I thought of myself as _technically_ attractive: blonde hair, blue eyes, symmetrical features that fit my face well, and a figure that was neither too fat nor too thin. And yes, the breasts that Sophie-Anne claimed Eric was particularly interested in.

But more than one vampire had told me that I had almost no scent whatsoever, which meant that my blood would have little to no taste. They said that was pretty unusual, but the ones that were in on my secret figured it might be tied in with my telepathy somehow.

I flipped my pillow over and sighed in frustration. This sort of thing had never upset me before. I knew it was pointless.

I couldn't be with a human because I wouldn't be able to _not_ hear their every thought.

I couldn't hear Weres as well, but it was still enough to be problematic.

No vampire would want to be with me because my blood would be so bland.

And no matter who I was with, I either had to hide my true nature from them, or they had to be someone that Sophie-Anne and I trusted with our secret.

The only other race I'd ever encountered were demons, kind of. Mr C and his nieces, Gladiola and Diantha, were half-demons. All I ever got from them was a low-level hum, but none of them could ever be candidates for a relationship. He was like I imagined an uncle might be, and I used to play with Gladiola and Diantha when we were younger.

All of that spelled out a great big _No Nookie For Sookie_. Ever. I always figured that it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't know what I was missing. There were reasons why I avoided thinking about this kind of thing. It wasn't like I was completely oblivious to sex; I just figured I'd personally never have it. The people who wanted me at all, wanted me for my brains, not my body.

In other words, I was completely unprepared to handle hearing that someone was attracted to me. I flipped my pillow over again, punching it slightly to fluff it up.

* * *

><p>I finished meeting with Mr C just in time for supper. When I got back to the little suite that connected Gran's and my rooms, there was a note waiting for me. Apparently Gran was out for a walk. Kinda strange; maybe she was starting to get restless again.<p>

Usually she and I ate in the common area kitchen, unless it was a special occasion or we had something we wanted to talk about privately. Since her note said she'd be back in time for supper, I grabbed a book and curled up on the couch to wait for her.

I was just getting to a particularly steamy part of the book—made that much more effective by my brain's insistence on picturing Eric as the romantic male lead of the story—when Gran got home. Almost grateful for the interruption, I flushed and put the book away before getting up to give Gran a hug.

"There's my girl," she said, giving me a good squeeze. "How'd your meeting go? What'd he say?" Unable to sleep, I'd still been awake when Gran got up, and had told her why I was going to be having a chat with Mr C.

I smiled weakly. "Well, the whole blood bond thing was put in the contract early on—years ago—as part of a compromise that I've benefited from."

"So there's no way out of it."

"Right. So I told him what Sophie-Anne told me, with how she wants to experiment and all that, and he said he would help us come up with a procedure that fit with the contract."

"I'm sure he will, dear." Gran had an odd expression on her face, like she wanted to smile and frown at the same time.

"Oh, I know he will. Even though he's technically the palace lawyer, I never get the impression like I'm getting the bad end of a deal. He's very fair to me."

She hummed in response and started getting stuff out of the tiny fridge in our kitchenette. Last night she'd cooked up a few large casseroles for the donors—another sign she was getting restless—enough to last a day or three. I set our little table while she prepped the leftovers.

"How was your day, Gran?"

"I suppose I can't complain. I got some new books from the library. Stopped by the chemist for more vitamins. Nothing fancy, but nothing horrible, either." She stopped and looked a me. "You've been up a while. Or have you slept?"

"I had a fairly long nap before I went to see Mr C, after you and I talked. I don't have to show up tonight until about nine or so. I might catch another nap between now and then."

Gran nodded. "Have you taken your vitamins today?"

"Yes, ma'am; took 'em when I got up from my nap."

"Good girl. It'd be better if you got more fresh air and sunlight..." she paused, looking as if there was something more she wanted to say.

"Gran?" I asked after she'd been quiet a few minutes.

"Hmn? Oh, don't mind me. Train of thought must have derailed. Come, sit. It's your turn to say grace."


	4. Thicker than water and harder to swallow

Mr Cataliades wound up overseeing the entire procedure, to ensure that my identity was kept completely secret. This is the way things went down.

Just as the vampire on the other end of this experiment had no idea who I was, I had no idea who he or she was. They were in a room on the other side of the palace. I was in a small room that was near a larger room with oodles of Weres and humans. Sophie-Anne and Wybert were with me; Andre and Siegbert were with the vampire.

Mr C was sure to use standard sterile procedures to get a bag of blood from the vampire, making sure that it was exposed to as little open air as possible. I thought that was a bit odd, but he explained that vampire blood begins to change, on a chemical level, when exposed to oxygen. It can become unstable, the results less predictable. Vampires were aware of this, so on the rare occasions that they shared their blood with a human, whether they served it in a cup or allowed them to drink straight from the vein would depend on what sort of results they were looking for. Too much oxygenated vampire blood in a short period of time could drive a person quite mad, from what he told me.

Once he had the vampire's blood, he was escorted through the palace by Diantha (who had grown up to be a fierce fighter—I was glad she and I were friends, to say the least). He then drew blood from me, using the same techniques, but with freshly sterilized equipment.

He was such an efficient and deft hand at drawing blood, I found myself wondering when—and why—he'd had opportunity to practice. If demons were long-lived, maybe he'd spent some time as a doctor or a nurse.

After drawing my blood, he and Diantha went back to the other end of the palace, back to where the vampire was waiting.

Finally, Andre sent some kind of signal to Sophie-Anne. I had long suspected that she was able to telepathically communicate with her children, which would go a long way to explaining why she was so concerned about the possibility of my being able to hear her. It was the sort of thing that even if I'd had the nerve to ask, I'm quite certain she wouldn't have answered.

All of this came down to me and the vampire drinking each others' blood at roughly the same time.

Sophie-Anne eyed me expectantly, waiting.

It didn't take long.

"I can't hear them," I said, which put a relieved look on Sophie-Anne's face until I added, "but I can tell he's disappointed. Like he thought I would taste better or something."

"How do you know it's a male vampire?" she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly.

I thought about it for a moment. "I don't know, they just _feel_ male."

"Hmn. Wait here," she said as she stepped out of the room.

I smiled at Wybert. He didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled in a friendly fashion. He was a pretty reserved fellow. Even getting that much of a response from him was pretty rare. I always felt like I should mark my calendar whenever that happened.

Sophie-Anne came back a few minutes later, sporting a sly smile.

"What's the word?" I asked.

"The word is _Peru_."

I blinked. "Uh... As in, the _country_, Peru?" Even Wybert looked confused (two facial expressions in one day... Gran would tell me I should buy a lottery ticket).

"Yes. That is where I'll be sending my least favorite sycophant for a few years. I've got a project lined up that should keep them busy until the temporary connection wears off. Actually, it'll probably be gone within a few months at the most, but they really do get on my nerves."

"So whatever the results, they weren't enough to dust him?" She could play the pronoun game all she wanted; I was fairly convinced the vampire was a _him_.

She snorted. "They sensed you for all of forty-five seconds, then lost you."

"Which means?"

"Which means they're either more weak-minded than I realized, or you can block your side of a temporary bond. Or both."

"Is that a good thing?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound as nervous as I felt.

"On multiple levels. First, we know that a single blood exchange doesn't let you read our minds. And he—yes, fine, you were right about him being male—was weak-minded enough that if you were going to be able to read any vampire mind, it would have been his. Second, do you know how many accidents happen to vampires in Peru? Lots. Lots of beautiful, decapitating accidents. Third, we now know it's safe to do some experimenting with you and my boys."

I cringed. "We're not going to do any more tonight, are we?" I didn't know how much more I could drink. At the very least, I would need a pee break.

"Well, I don't want you getting confused, so we can't proceed with the next step until our first guinea piggie vampire is out of bounds. We'll put him on a plane tonight, then start fresh tomorrow. In the meantime, I think I'd like you'd working behind the scenes tonight."

I frowned; she didn't have me behind the mirrors much anymore, unless there was a special situation. "There are humans here, other than donors?"

"No, I've kept the schedule clear for a while. I just want you to keep your eyes and ears open."

Fair enough. This wasn't the first time Sophie-Anne had come off as slightly paranoid. If her paranoia kept us safe, I wasn't about to complain.

* * *

><p>Sophie-Anne was mostly concerned about how vampire blood would affect my inability to hear vampire thoughts, but she only glossed over the other changes it brought about. I wasn't fully aware of, or prepared for, some of the other possible side effects.<p>

When I woke up the next afternoon, I looked like one of those models in magazines... _after_ they've been airbrushed. Every hair was perfect. My pores were even less visible than usual. I had a strange glow; later that night, I would notice for the first time that vampires _all_ seemed to glow, as if their skin was vaguely luminescent. As curious as I was about that, some gnawing little voice inside told me to not bring up _that_ little number.

I could tell that Gran noticed some of the changes; she narrowed her eyes slightly—not in a mean way, but in a very skeptical or evaluative way—but didn't say anything. It was another topic to add to the long list of things we couldn't really do anything about.

When Gran was in her thirties, she'd fallen and broken her ankle. My grandfather took her to the hospital to get it taken care of, and while they were working on it, a nurse leaned over, placed a consoling hand on Gran's shoulder and said, "You can cry if you like; no one will think poorly of you."

Gran asked her, "Will it make the pain go away?"

The nurse, confused, shook her head and said that no, it wouldn't. Gran's response to that was to tell the nurse that if crying wouldn't ease the pain, she didn't see any point in doing it.

Make no mistake: Adele Stackhouse was a tough old bird. It wasn't that we didn't talk about our problems; we acknowledged them, discussed them so that we understood them, and if nothing could be done about them, she saw no point in dwelling on them.

She and I had already discussed the whole blood bond thing; on the practical side, there were definite bonuses for me. It meant I was that much more protected—not that I was in any real danger, but it was better to be safe than sorry. No other vampire would challenge a blood bond between me and Sophie-Anne. We were aware of the healing properties of vampire blood; I would never suffer from any illnesses. I never really got sick anyway, but if it turned out that the cancer Aunt Linda had was something that ran in the family, I wouldn't have to go through any painful treatments.

And if vampire blood just so happened to enhance my features, I wasn't going to complain about that aspect of it.

I wasn't too keen on the whole experimentation process, but I was at least glad that we were keeping it within the "family" from here on out. I had to admit that I was curious to see how a connection with Wybert or Siegbert would be different from one with Andre or Sophie-Anne.

All in all, I didn't hate the idea of being bonded to Sophie-Anne. I did love her, in an odd, familial sort of way. Gran's feelings on the matter seemed a bit irrational, for her. She seemed to have more resentment for the idea than she could adequately explain. If I hadn't known how _not_-racist she was, I would have thought she had something against vampires in general.

I was already in the reception room with the other donors who were on tap tonight when the vampires rose. I wasn't too concerned that they would notice any of the changes in my appearance: they were usually glamoured to not notice _too_ much about their surroundings.

When Sophie-Anne beckoned to me as soon as she walked into the room. I smiled, got up, and followed her into the secure side-room. She immediately got out two bags of blood and drained them both, one right after the other.

"Thirsty, I take it?" I asked as I sat down in one of the comfy chairs.

"Ravenous," she said, licking her lips. "But better now."

"Any assignments for me tonight?" I asked, eager to change the topic. Sophie-Anne's feelings on shame were about on par with Gran's feelings about crying, so I'd already learned my lesson that there are certain times to not ask a vampire to explain their actions.

"You're off-duty until we're done with the testing. There's nothing big coming up, anyway; I've made sure of that. Oh, and I've only just found out that there's a ritual to break a blood bond. But oops, the other vampire's already on his way to the deepest jungles of Peru. Oh, well. Truth is we don't know if the ritual works at all, let alone on you specifically. It'll be another thing we'll have to find out. Tonight, I think we're going to have you and Wybert do an exchange, see how that goes. "

Wybert spoke even less English than his brother, so if I was able to read his mind, I wouldn't get much of anything that I could understand. There was no need for the secret squirrel routine at this stage in the game, so after a little while, we all just piled into one of the secure rooms. By _we_, I mean Sophie-Anne, Wybert, Mr C, and myself.

Sophie-Anne was there because this was, as she put it, her "pet project... pun intended." Wybert and I were there because we were exchanging blood, and Mr C was there to do the actual blood drawing, as he had the night before. It still struck me as odd that he was the one doing all of the medical stuff with the needles and bags of blood.

I'd been concerned about how much blood they'd be taking from me in such a short amount of time, but Sophie-Anne assured me that between the vampire blood I'd be ingesting and the B12 vitamins I normally took, I'd be more than fine. Most of the humans in the palace took iron supplements, but they tended to upset my stomach, so I took B12 instead. Even though no one had been drinking from me, it was great for keeping up my energy levels.

I wasn't sure how to classify the different tastes of vampire blood. The stuff I'd tasted last night didn't taste like my own blood—not that I'd made a habit of drinking my own blood, mind you; but who hasn't accidentally bitten their own lip or tongue?—but I wasn't sure how it compared.

When I tasted Wybert's blood, somehow I just knew it tasted _older_. Maybe that was just because I knew Wybert was pretty darn old. He made a strange face as he sipped from the pouch of my blood, then said something to Sophie-Anne in whatever language the two of them spoke. (Andre had once told me the name of the language, but I'd long since forgotten.) She frowned, responded, then grabbed the bag from his hand and, before Mr Cataliades or I could say anything, took a small sip.

Mr C and I exchanged glances; mine was confused, his was concerned.

"He's right," Sophie-Anne said. "You really _don't_ taste like anything. I remember water having no taste; it's kind of like that. Very bizarre. But oddly refreshing. You're like some kind of vampire Evian."

I blinked and tried to ignore the confusion I felt from Wybert. "So what does that mean, exactly?"

"It means that while someone might want to taste you for the novelty of it, you'll never have to worry about anyone getting addicted to you."

_Not like I was going to be freely on tap anyway_, I thought. Strangely enough, I felt both comforted and upset by this thought. Not knowing what to make of that, I set it aside and figured I'd ponder it another time.

Wybert and Sophie-Anne conversed a bit more. If Mr C understood what they were saying, he didn't let on. He and I waited; I don't know about him, but I was feeling pretty impatient.

"Sookie, please stop trying to block him," Sophie-Anne eventually said.

"I'm not, I swear. You know my shields suck." I'm sure my eyes were as wide as dinner plates. I couldn't really keep out most humans' thoughts, and I had years of experience trying to do that. How did they think I was able to block a connection with a vampire when I'd only been exposed to it for less than a few hours?

"Well, whether you're actively trying or not, Wybert's not getting a damn thing from you. Are you getting anything from him?"

"Confusion, maybe frustration... I think?" I wasn't certain.

Thoughts were easy to interpret because most of the time, they were words or images; as long as that person thought in English, I could understand them. Getting a person's _emotions_ was a relatively new experience. And for some reason, Wybert's emotions were more muted than the ones I'd picked up from the other vampire last night. Maybe age was more of a factor than distance? That made me wonder what the range was on this kind of thing. I knew that if I focused, I could hear the thoughts of any human within the palace walls, but couldn't generally hear much from anyone outside. Granted, there was a fair amount of space between the building's walls and the gated edge of the property.

Whatever was going on, Sophie-Anne looked perplexed. Not mad or upset, but definitely like she wasn't expecting the results we'd gotten.

"Let's give this a few nights," she said, "so we can see how it develops over time. Sookie, why don't you shower and change, then come back down to the reception room?"

I nodded and got up. Mr C opened the door for me, but I was the only one who left the room. Oookay. I was wondering why they didn't just talk in another language if they wanted to talk about me, but hey—no one ever said vampires were logical.

I did as Sophie-Anne suggested. I could tell Wybert was feeling uncomfortable about something, but after a short while I found I could ignore it fairly easily. It was kind of like a radio playing in the background: I could turn the volume down and it would just sort of filter it out of my awareness.

* * *

><p>We let the exchange "ripen" for two nights, to no real difference. I could still easily sense (and ignore) Wybert; he could only sense me when I was sleeping. This proved to be an unexpected wrinkle: the second day, I'd had a nightmare and woke up to find a battle-ready Saxon vampire kicking in my bedroom door because he'd thought I was under some kind of attack.<p>

During broad daylight, no less. My room was light-tight, but still: I'd pulled him out of a sound day-sleep. I hadn't even known that was possible.

That created a whole new set of issues; I'd been having nightmares on and off my entire life, but I could never remember what they were about. They left me with a general sense of unease, and I'd rattle around in my own skin for a day or two afterward.

Wybert wouldn't leave me alone until Sophie-Anne got there. Then she decided that Dr Ludwig needed to make sure I was okay.

Gran, who hadn't been in our suite when this whole mess started, came back to find about a dozen various supernatural beings hovering around me like satellites.

I couldn't begin to fathom why any of this was such a big deal. When I got frustrated with all of the fussing, Andre gave me a flat stare and said that Wybert probably hadn't felt anything remotely resembling fear in several centuries.

Oh.

Andre was one of those quiet ones, the sort that Gran said you always had to watch out for. He didn't say much, but he had a quick wit and an inclination to be more than a little mean with his words. The two of us got along, but I couldn't begin to keep count of how many donors had been reduced to tears by a handful of words from Andre. He was never mean to me, but I couldn't figure out if it was because he liked me or because he didn't want to piss off his maker.

Joy of joys, that's who I was going to be exchanging blood with next.

Given how Wybert had reacted to my bad dream, we figured it might be best to skip Siegbert entirely. Not that either of them were particularly given to histrionics, but the language barrier had turned out to be a bigger issue than anyone had expected.

After the nightmare incident, it was about a week or so before Dr Ludwig finally cleared me for further experimentation. For Wybert's sake, they tested the ritual to break the connection between us. He gave me a wide berth until after the ritual, which hurt, annoyed and amused me. What did he think I was going to do to him? Luckily for everyone, the ritual worked, and the relationship between Wybert and I went back to normal.

Well, normal for _us_. Although he did seem to be slightly more protective of me, after that point.

Almost a fortnight after my 18th birthday, I once again found myself in a secure room with Andre, Sophie-Anne, and Mr C. Aside from Andre, the rest of us were getting to be old hats at this process. He also found my tasteless blood fascinating.

Turns out, my ability to block a vampire's connection had nothing to do with how weak- or strong-minded they were. Andre couldn't pick up on me either. He and I were able to experiment a little bit more, since we could actually talk about it. We found that if I concentrated, I could make him feel the connection, but otherwise, he couldn't sense me unless I was unconscious or in distress.

* * *

><p>I could understand why they did it, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed having the bejeezus scared out of me.<p>

One night, I was minding my own business, walking through the palace, when something large and scary seemed to materialize in front of me.

It was only Siegbert in a gorilla costume, using vampire speed to startle me. It worked. I jumped about a foot in the air, shrieked, and then attempted to kick him in the yarbles.

Why I thought a nut-punch would have any effect on an ape, I'm not exactly certain. I wasn't really thinking rationally at the time.

We learned several things from this event.

First, we discovered that when I was startled, afraid, or otherwise in distress, I sent a rather loud call through the connection with Andre. He likened its volume and intensity to "an airhorn through a megaphone in a country church at midnight."

Second, we learned that when Andre is startled—something that hadn't happened in several centuries—he screams like a little girl.

Last, but unfortunately not least, we learned that Siegbert and Wybert found my and Andre's reactions to be entirely hysterical. They laughed until they were hoarse and crying bloody tears. Andre and I wised up to their tricks, but Sophie-Anne had to intervene to get them to stop trying to randomly scare me—and by extension, Andre.

After about a month, Andre and I exchanged blood again. That time around, it was definitely a stronger connection. I could sense his emotions, get a decent bead on his location, and it was harder to turn down his buzzing in my head. He could only barely sense me when I was awake. I hadn't experienced another nightmare since the one that had freaked Wybert out, so we had no way of knowing how that might affect Andre.

Since my bad dreams were infrequent and not really predictable, we couldn't count on those to test the bond. Since I Wybert and Siegbert had lost the element of surprise with me, we couldn't use them to test the bond either.

As frustrating as it was, I was kind of pleased that there was so little anyone could do to frighten me.

What was it Gran always said? Oh, yeah: _pride goes before a fall_.


	5. I hold my face in my two hands

I bolted up in my bed, the air shockingly cold against my skin. It took me a moment to realize that I was dripping with sweat. Somehow I knew it wasn't a nightmare that had awoken me, but I couldn't figure out what had done it. All I knew was that something felt... wrong.

My normal waking-up routine was to get up, grab whatever clothes I was going to be wearing out of my closet, get into a shower, then grab a cup of coffee, take my vitamins and maybe have a bite to eat. The shower helped me wake up; the coffee ensured that I wasn't about to levitate on pure bitch evil. I was grouchy without my caffeine, to say the least.

This morning was different, most notably because it _was_ still morning. It was possible that the clock on my nightstand was lying to me, but if it wasn't, then it was only eight o'clock. I tried to relax, thinking that whatever was going on, I might at least be spared the vampire histrionics.

Relaxing would be easier said than done: whatever it was that had roused me from slumber, it was apparently a package deal with a hefty shot of adrenaline. My heart was pounding, threatening to break free of my chest. I rubbed my sternum, hoping to ease the strange ache that had settled there.

I got up out of bed and went out into the tiny living room. There was no one there. Gran wouldn't be expecting me to wake up anytime soon, so she wouldn't be around. I closed my eyes and cast out a mental net, sifting through the brains in the palace to see if I could figure out what was going on.

There was no pattern to the thoughts I heard, so that meant there was no widespread crisis. Nothing could have happened to Andre, but just to be on the safe side, I called security—using a special phone that had a modulator to disguise my voice—to verify that his resting chambers were undisturbed. I had them check Sophie-Anne's too, while they were at it. She and I hadn't exchanged blood, so I couldn't have felt anything from her, but I figured it was better safe than sorry.

There was no going back to bed now. I was too restless for a shower, but I tossed on a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt before heading down to the kitchen to hang out with...

Gran.

I hadn't checked on Gran.

I tried to filter out the minds of the palace, to hone in on hers as I was walking to the kitchen, where I knew she would be.

I couldn't hear her.

Even knowing that she had a quiet mind and I couldn't always pick up her thoughts, I broke into a run.

* * *

><p>They later told me that they'd found me in the middle of the kitchen, clutching Gran's body, guarding it as if I were a wolf watching over her pups.<p>

They told me that in the short time it took for them to find us, I was already hoarse, my voice nearly gone from screaming.

They told me that it took four of the Were guards to pull her out of my arms.

They told me that my distress had woken Andre out of his daytime rest; he'd flown to my side, only for me to set upon him like a wild animal. They didn't know why, and I hadn't been in a position to explain. They told me that his left eye would grow back in a few months.

I don't remember any of it.

* * *

><p>They kept me sedated and strapped to a hospital bed for the next twenty-four hours. Or maybe it was forty-eight, I couldn't be sure. By that time, they'd done whatever they'd needed to do to break the blood connection between me and Andre. Sophie-Anne had assured me that he bore me no ill will for having attacked him, but I was pretty sure I didn't really give a rat's ass.<p>

All I knew was that my Gran was gone. I didn't care about anything.

I was grateful to Mr Cataliades when he told me that Gran's funeral was being delayed until I could attend. It had been in her will that she was not to be buried until I was there. There was some comfort, small as it was, in knowing that I'd be allowed to see her put to rest as I hadn't been able to do with my parents or my brother.

It didn't help me any to learn that she had died from a ruptured aortic aneurysm — a hole in her heart. It was a quick and supposedly not a painful way to go. Why couldn't it have happened when the vampires were awake? Why couldn't they have saved her? I knew it didn't make sense to place any blame on them for what happened to her, but I guess grief and anger aren't always rational things.

During the days that followed, I was kept heavily sedated. As much as I thought I ought to be mad about that, I wasn't. Not really. It was a break from the pain. In the hazy sleep and drugged dreams, I got to see my Gran one last time.

I woke up clutching the memory of that dream as if it were a lifesaver in a stormy ocean. In my head, I went over the dream until I had completely committed it to memory. What she'd said didn't make any sense, but I wouldn't let myself forget what I considered to be her last words to me.

The vampires all thought I'd gone mad with grief; I agreed with them at least a little. It had been a temporary insanity, one that I wished I could bring back at will. In that madness, there was oblivion.

Because of their uncertainty regarding my mental health, I was kept under very close watch. Sophie-Anne thought it might make my situation worse to go to Bon Temps, but Dr Ludwig intervened and convinced her that it really was in my best interests to attend the funeral.

I'm honestly not sure how much time passed between Gran's death and the day I found myself in a limousine headed north towards Bon Temps. It was a five hour drive, and my only companions were Mr Cataliades, who apparently was the executor of Gran's last will and testament, and a Were guard by the name of Nicholas. They both left me alone, which was more than fine with me. I wasn't fit for company.

No one at the service recognized me. No one knew who I was. A few of them noticed me and wondered why I was there, wondered how I knew Adele Stackhouse. I felt no need to clear things up for them.

As I sat in that stuffy old church, listening to the man behind the podium and the soft _whishing_ of fans, it took most of what little energy I had to keep the thoughts down to a dull roar. Mr Cataliades must have seen what sort of shape I was in and understood the cause; he laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, and oddly enough that seemed to help. I took a shaky breath and managed to get through the rest of the service.

It wasn't until we were leaving the church that I realized just how crowded it had been. People were standing in the very back because there was no more room in the pews. No wonder I'd been having such difficulties.

Mr C led me back to the limousine, keeping hold of my hand as if to guide me. Something about him made it easier to block out the mental noise; I'd never noticed that before, but then again, I couldn't remember the last time he'd ever touched me.

Not wanting anyone to figure out who I was, I made sure to stay a bit towards the back during the funeral. I don't remember much of it—not because of any mental infirmity, more because I was just overwhelmed and exhausted. I was in a daze.

As her coffin dropped below the ground, past my line of sight, I looked up at all of the people who had come to pay their respects to Adele Stackhouse. As far as I could tell, it looked like the whole damn town was here. I had no idea who any of them were, and was grateful that none of them seemed to recognize me.

The fact that I was hiding behind a thick black veil might have had something to do with that.

Almost every single one of those people, Gran had helped in some way; their combined memories and thoughts of how Adele Stackhouse had been there for them was the best eulogy anyone could ever hope for. She had freely given her love and assistance to every last person here. They were sorry to see her go, and not because of any misplaced greed. More than one mind there carried the thought that the world needed more people like Adele Stackhouse.

I was inclined to agree, even knowing that no one could replace my Gran.

As another wave of tears blurred my vision, I turned my attention inward, focusing instead on the memories of her that replayed to my mind's eye. The way she taught me how to count by showing me different games of Solitaire. The way she would peel and slice apples for us to share. The way neither of us could sing Christmas carols, but did it anyway when we decorated a tiny tree in our tiny suite. The way she could whip a pie together, completely from scratch.

Pie.

I frowned. In the dream I'd had of Gran, she'd told me that she'd made a pie just for me, and that she'd put it inside so that no one else could have it. It hadn't made sense at the time. It didn't entirely make sense now, but something in my gut told me that I needed to go to the old Stackhouse farmhouse.

* * *

><p>AN: the title of this chapter is a reference to a short poem by Thich Nhat Hanh, called _For Warmth_: "I hold my face in my two hands. / No, I am not crying. / I hold my face in my two hands / to keep my loneliness warm: / two hands protecting, / two hands nourishing, / two hands preventing / my soul from leaving me / in anger!"


	6. Easy as pie

I have no idea how I managed it, but I was able to slip away from Nicholas and Mr C as the funeral was letting out. I'd sifted through the minds of the people around me and pieced together a visual map of the area. Once I had an idea of where I was going, it was just a matter of getting lost in the crowd.

I soon found myself alone at the old Stackhouse farmhouse. It would take some time before anyone would able to find me. There were no vampires who currently had any sort of connection with me, and I had no scent for them to track.

This old house was deep enough in the country that if you didn't know where it was, it was gonna take you a hot minute to find it. The beautiful irony of it was that the house was easy walking distance from the cemetery where Gran had been laid to rest.

I'd seen parts of it in Gran's old pictures, but I hadn't actually been here in over a decade. As I stepped through the front door, memories came flooding back. I'd read, years ago, that visiting old places could bring back long-forgotten memories. It was something I hadn't experienced before, and I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I froze, terrified that I would remember something unpleasant, and that would be the last straw that would break the camel's back.

Fortunately, everything I recalled seemed to bring me more comfort than anything else. I closed my eyes and reveled in what felt like a gift from beyond.

I stepped all the way into the house, closed the door behind me, and set my bag down. Looking around, I wasn't sure I remembered where exactly the kitchen would be. I went one direction and found a set of stairs, so I turned around and went back the other way... and there it was.

Intellectually, I knew that I'd lived here at least a little while, between when my parents had died and when Gran and I had gone to live with Sophie-Anne. From what I could remember hearing, it had been almost eight or nine months. For a brief moment, it occurred to me that I should ask Gran about that time line. When it hit me that I couldn't ask Gran _anything_ anymore, it was almost a physical blow.

Whatever force had been keeping me upright suddenly gave out, and I felt to the floor in a heap of noisy tears. I cried like I couldn't remember ever having cried before, and minutes or hours later, I sat up and wondered if Gran hadn't been wrong—maybe there _were_ some types of pain that could be eased by crying. Aside from the wicked congestion headache that was threatening to split my skull open, I could kind of say that I felt better.

Feeling about ten years older, I stiffly pulled myself back up on my feet and got my bearings back. Finding the kitchen took a matter of seconds.

The glass-fronted cupboards were stocked with plates and canned goods. Somewhere in my head, there must be a memory of watching Gran cooking, baking, or doing various other kitchen type activities. Not for the first time, I found myself resenting my lost memories. I wished there were some way to salvage the good moments while still keeping the bad ones firmly locked away.

Somehow, this room was infused with the essence of Gran; it felt more holy, more sanctified than that stuffy old church. She had spent so much time in this place. I could close my eyes and almost hear her voice. Her time at the palace was almost a footnote—an aberration. Had her life played out as it ought to have, she wouldn't have ever lived anywhere else.

I opened my eyes and looked at the fridge. It hummed quietly, tempting me, calling out to me to come closer. I opened the larger lower door; other than a small box of baking soda—to keep it from smelling musty—it was empty. When I opened the freezer door, there was a single glass baking dish that was covered with tin foil. I pulled it out and recognized her handwriting: she'd written my name in Sharpie on the foil.

Pulling off the foil, I soon noticed that there was a slip of paper taped to the underside. Odd. It had instructions on it: _Remove foil and place pie in the microwave for 5 minutes to defrost_.

I frowned and looked around until I spotted the microwave. Under a slight coating of dust, it gleamed with newness. Gran hated microwaves; she wasn't one of those batty old ladies who thought they caused cancer, she just didn't like the way they made food all dried out and chewy. Why on earth was this here? And why was she telling me to microwave a _pie_?

Maybe I really had lost my mind.

I took another look at the pie and realized that it was well beyond freezer-burned. How long had it been there? I scraped off some of the frost and discovered that on top of all the other things that didn't make sense, it looked like a peach pie.

Gran knew damn well I was allergic to peaches.

Maybe there was a method to this madness. I shrugged and put the glass dish into the microwave, which I then set to go for five minutes. Lost in thought, I watched as the pie spun around, heated evenly by the contraption Gran so disliked. I narrowed my eyes as I noticed something strange, then jumped at the loud ding signaling that five minutes had passed.

The first time I grabbed at the dish, I almost burned the tips of my fingers. Letting out a stream of curses that would have had Gran reaching for a bar of soap, I looked around until I spotted a tea towel, which I then used to pull the pie out. I held it up carefully and looked at the underside of the dish.

There were thin spots in the pastry, almost as if Gran had pushed a little too hard as she was pressing the dough into the pan. Some of those thin spots on the bottom appeared almost white—and it couldn't be frost, but I could see how it might have appeared that way while the damn thing was still frozen.

Knowing I could never eat a peach pie, I flipped it over onto the foil so I could break the thing apart.

There, between the peaches and the pastry, was a small square of paper that had been wrapped in cling film.

With shaking hands, I pulled it put and ran it over to the sink to rinse away the stickiness. I wiped it against my shirt to dry it off, too impatient to find a fresh towel.

It didn't take long to peel away the plastic and unfold what turned out to be a note from Gran.

_Dearest Sookie,_

_You wouldn't be reading this if I were alive and well, so let my first words to you be these: I love you, and I will always be with you, no matter where you go. I'm watching over you right now, and any angel who tries to stop me, I'll just punch 'em right in the nose._

_Bless your heart, you're so much stronger than you could ever know. While I'm grateful that you have that strength at your disposal, I hate the circumstances that brought it about._

_There are things you need to know, things I wish I could have told you in person. You're probably standing in the kitchen, reading this. You need to get some fresh air. Do you remember where you and your grandfather and I used sit and listen to the crickets? That was always a nice spot to hang out under the sun._

I blinked. What?

My grandfather had died years before I was born. I had never sat with him anywhere. Except...

Except I remembered Gran telling me stories about how she and Grandpa used to listen to the crickets out in the woods; she'd told me how he could tell you what temperature it was by counting and timing cricket chirps. Gran had said that they followed a small path through the trees to a meadow, which was where he'd set up a bench. I stepped out the back door and scanned the area until I found a small white flagstone that marked the beginning of the path. Following it as best as I could, I soon found myself in a small clearing with a wooden bench.

Confused, I sat down and re-read Gran's note. _Under the sun_? The trees were too thick. The ground under my feet probably wouldn't even see direct sunlight in the dead of winter, when there were no leaves on the trees. I looked down and saw another stone set into the ground.

This one was a around concrete slab that had been inlaid with small orange and yellow ceramic tiles. It was kind of abstract, but the way the colors were arranged seemed to suggest a sun. _Under the sun_. It took some doing, but after a fashion I'd gotten the thing flipped over. On the underside of that was another note, this one folded up inside a zip-lock bag.

_You clever girl, you're wise to my tricks, but I've got a treat for you as well. Give Old Jack a call and he'll tell you a thing or two that ought to shed some light on things._

A trick and a treat? Old Jack? I scratched my head and tried to make sense of it. Trick. Treat. Old Jack.

Oh! Halloween! Trick or treating and jack o' lanterns. Now, that could lead me to any number of places: a pumpkin patch near the treeline of the back yard proved to be a bust. As I was standing there, confused, I suddenly remembered Gran telling me about an old scarecrow that she and Grandpa had made; they'd nicknamed it Old Jack and kept it out in the vegetable patch during the summers.

Except it wasn't anywhere to be seen. Had someone stolen it? Or... or was it stashed away somewhere? I spun in a circle until my eyes landed on an old shed. _Shed some light on things_. When I opened the door, there was an old scarecrow, front and center and spooky as all get-out.

_Tell me a thing or two_, huh? Knowing that Gran wouldn't have approved of Old Jack talking with something in his mouth, I pried loose the old corn-cob pipe from his dried-turnip noggin. A small piece of string dangled from the stem of the pipe. Gently, I pulled at the string until it came out; at the end of it was a tightly rolled piece of paper. I carefully unrolled it for my next clue.

_You're doing so well, Sookie dear. You must be tired from all this running around. Why don't you curl up by the fire, put up your feet and set a spell?_

_Remember, I'll always be with you. Wherever I am, know that I'm smiling and thinking about you._

I was confused for a brief moment when the words swam on the paper; I hadn't realized that I'd started crying. After wiping the tears from my eyes, I went back into the house and found the living room. The living room with a fireplace.

On the mantel were a slew of pictures. I only barely recognized my brother and our parents. I suppose that should have made me feel guilty, but I was too overcome by missing Gran to feel much for the family I didn't even remember losing.

There was only one picture of Gran on the mantel. It was a recent picture, and she was smiling brighter than the sun. I pulled the picture down off of the shelf and, thinking there might be some clue in her smile, I stared at her face for a few minutes. When the image didn't magically come to life and start telling me the secrets she'd gone to such lengths to protect, I almost flung the picture to the ground in frustration.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then realized that maybe there was something _literally_ behind that smile of hers. Flipping the frame over, I pulled loose the cardboard backing and found another note.

_Don't forget to take your your vitamins._

...Uh.

What.

I let out a stream of invectives that would have had Gran reaching for soap _and_ a switch. What was this, _A Christmas Story_? Poor Ralphie goes through torturous weeks of waiting to get his secret decoder ring so he can hear the secret message from Little Orphan Annie, and all she tells him is to remember to drink his Ovaltine. Gran's final message from beyond the grave was to tell me to _take my fucking vitamins_?

No, it _had_ to be another clue. Gran could have a mischievous sense of humor, but if _this_ was all there was to it, then that was just plain cruel. She couldn't possibly have done that to me.

I went into the kitchen and looked through the cupboards. There were some bottles of vitamins there, but not the kind I took. I stomped around the house until I found her bedroom and its en suite bathroom. In the medicine chest there, I found more vitamin bottles, but again: not the kind she used to give me. More stomping. Another bathroom, this one just off the hallway. I vaguely remembered that this was the bathroom I'd used when I was younger and we'd still lived here.

There, in that medicine chest, were even more vitamin bottles. Good grief, anyone taking inventory of the pills in this house would think we were all obsessed with damn vitamins. In this one, though, I finally found what I was looking for. Sneakily, it wasn't even really labeled as a vitamin; it was more an herbal supplement of some sort. Years ago, Gran had told me what was in it, but I could never quite remember the details.

I opened that bottle and found another note. Sweet merciful Christ on toast, this was just goofy. The idea that Gran or I had honestly and truly lost our minds was starting to feel like more and more of a possibility.

_How is a raven like a writing desk?_

I snorted. The answer was supposed to be, "Poe wrote extensively on both." But the other answer was that _both were hiding in the attic_. I couldn't even remember how Gran and I had developed that private little joke between us, but when I was younger I'd thought it was the funniest thing.

I went out into the hallway and pulled the string that brought down a set of folding stairs from the attic floor. There, up in the attic, I found a taxidermied raven sitting atop an old desk. I stared at it. It sat there, stubbornly refusing to give me a damned thing.

All of the other clues had been _in_ things. I wasn't about to start taking apart a stuffed bird, so I started by pulling out all of the desk drawers. Nothing. I turned the drawers over to see if there were any notes taped to the bottom. Nada. I knelt down and checked to see if there were any notes taped to any other undersides of any other part of the insufferable hunk of wood.

Nope.

When I was putting the drawers back, I realized that they weren't all the same length.

Huh.

It was small, but at the very back of one of the drawers was a secret compartment.

Bingo.

I fished out a thick wad of folded paper and carefully opened it up. Around the second page or so, I had to remind myself to breathe. When I was done reading, I went back to the first page and read it again from start to finish. Five pages of elegant handwriting that Gran couldn't have managed within the last few years—her arthritis had gotten too bad for her to write that well. She must have written this ages ago.

How long had these secrets been waiting for me to find them?

As my brain whirled and I tried to make sense of the secrets she'd divulged, I realized that I was running out of time. The rosy light filtering through the only window in the attic was practically screaming at me that the sun was setting. Based on what Gran had written, I suspected that Mr Cataliades wouldn't be the one who came to find me, even though he probably knew exactly where I was. Nor would he give the slightest clue to the guard or the limousine driver. When someone came to find me, it would be one of the vampires.

And I really didn't want them to know anything I'd learned today. Gran was right to keep her secrets so well-hidden.

They would find me soon. I folded the note back up, stuffed it back into the secret compartment, and put all the drawers back into place. I set everything back exactly as I had found it, then closed up the attic. In the kitchen, I wrapped the remnants of the peach pie in some old newspaper, then went out into the woods to toss it where the raccoons would happily gobble up the evidence.

I went back into the house and kept cleaning until I heard the muted roar of a car coming up the long driveway.

I'd kept all of the house lights off, so that anyone who came to the house wouldn't immediately know that I was there. I sat on the floor with my back against the front door.

The car came closer and closer, stopping just outside. The engine shut off, and after the opening and closing of a car door, I heard the crunching of boots on gravel. The lack of brain signal told me it was a vampire slowing making its way onto the porch.

The footsteps made their way back and forth on the porch, as if the owner of those feet was looking into the windows. They stopped less than a foot from where I was desperately holding my breath, trying to breathe without making the slightest amount of noise.

"Sookie, you can't hold your breath forever. And even if you could, I can still hear your heart beating."

All of the air left my lungs in a rush as I realized that I recognized that voice. I jumped to my feet and stared in shamed horror at the door. No. This couldn't be happening. I cringed. Why did it have to be _him_?

"Sophie-Anne's concerned about you and wants you to come home. I know what's happened, and I know you're upset. I promise that no one's mad at you. You're not in any kind of trouble."

Try as I might, I couldn't help but snort when I wondered for the thousandth time where else they thought I was going to go. As if that snort wouldn't be audible enough, he certainly would have heard the smacking noise of my hand clapping itself over my mouth.

The gig was up. I sighed and opened the door. I flicked my eyes up—and up, and up, and up—to his, letting him see my remorse and grief before I bowed my head in submission. It was time to step back into the role of the well-trained pet.

"I didn't meant to cause any trouble, Sheriff. Can I go home now?"


	7. The long road home

As we hit the highway, the intrigue of the scavenger hunt (and the adrenaline rush of having to frantically clean up after it) had completely worn off. I was sitting in a tiny car—I had no idea what kind it was, not being real familiar with cars—with the rather large sheriff of Area Five, Eric Northman. If nothing else, I was at least grateful for the fact that he was a vampire: it was taking all of my willpower to keep from breaking down in front of him; I wouldn't have been able to keep out his thoughts, had he been human.

I was also still in shock from the revelations I'd read in Gran's letter. She'd written that _her husband_ didn't have any children, and the babes she bore were sired from a half-fairy by the name of Fintan. Gran had cared for him, but ultimately loved more what he had been able to give her that her husband couldn't: children.

Furthermore, the letter explained that Gran had always been aware of the source of my telepathy. An old friend of Fintan's had given him a gift: select descendants of his would have the ability to read minds. Gran didn't say why some descendants were different than others; to the best of my knowledge, neither of her children had the ability. I knew my brother hadn't had it either. I wondered if I would ever find out what made me different from the rest of my family.

The best part of everything was the giver of that gift: Mr Cataliades.

She had hinted that he was also responsible for helping to keep me safe from the vampires "in a number of ways," but she didn't go into detail. I knew that I tended to get the better end of any contract he worked out between me and Sophie-Anne, but if he'd done anything else, I wasn't aware of what specifically it was. Not that that wasn't more than enough.

Mr C didn't look old enough to have been an "old friend" of my real grandfather, this Fintan fellow. It made me wonder about demon lifespans; how old _was_ he? Ultimately, it was kind of a dumb thing to focus on, but it was so much easier to ponder my demon lawyer's age than the fact that I was part-fairy because of a "necessary infidelity" of my Gran's.

Assimilating that information was going to require a huge paradigm shift; there was a part of me that thought maybe I ought to try to forget it, for the time being. Let it sink to the murky depths of my brain, like so much of the rest of my life. It was too big. I had no idea how I was going to come to accept the things I'd learned without some evidence of it showing in my behavior, in my mannerisms.

I was doubting whether I'd done the right thing when I put the note back where I'd found it. What if someone else came across one of the hints and managed to work out the puzzle? Should I have burned the note or flushed it? Or maybe both? There were secrets in there that weren't mine to reveal. How would the Queen react if she'd found out the sort of information that Gran and Mr C had been keeping from her all these years?

Just as an uncomfortable silence began to settle in the car, Northman pulled out his cell phone and dialed someone—presumably, Sophie-Anne. Over the quiet hum of the car, I could still make out the Queen's voice on the other end; I didn't think that was something I'd normally be able to hear. The vampire blood I'd last had from Andre must still be enhancing my senses. Northman and the Queen spoke in French for a minute or two before he snapped the phone shut. It wasn't a particularly long conversation, but it seemed to irritate him. He hid it well, but I was at least slightly accustomed to his particular body language.

"I'm not certain you realize, Miss Stackhouse, the sort of position you've put our Queen in."

I didn't respond. I just stared at him.

If he hadn't been driving, I might have slapped him.

I had just buried my Gran, and he thought I was going to be thinking about _politics_? Hell, that was only the tip of the iceberg. I wanted to shout, to scream at him that my entire world had gone topsy-turvy, and he thought I gave a flying bloody fuck about anyone else's problems?

It was a good thing I was too exhausted to have much of an external reaction. I hung my head, letting the curtain of my hair shield my face from him. Let him think that I felt guilty—maybe he'd leave me alone, then.

After a moment, he looked at me briefly before turning back to the road. "No, how _could_ you realize it? Word of your disobedience will spread, as will the lengths to which Sophie-Anne went to bring you back. She will be perceived as having a weakness, and it will be _you_, Miss Stackhouse. You've just painted a rather large target over both of your heads."

Huh. He had no idea that, as the Queen's telepath, I was one of her greatest _strengths_. As much as it exhausted me, I was also no stranger to the political game that was regularly played within the palace walls. I itched to correct his assumptions about me, partly because I was feeling the need to lash out at someone, anyone... but also partly because I didn't like the idea that he would think poorly of me.

"Unless," I said, finally giving in to temptation, "when I get back to the palace, I was demonstrably out of my mind with grief. Surely, word of what happened to Andre has already gotten out. By going out of her way to bring me back, Sophie-Anne will appear to have responsibly contained a potential threat to the public—and a potential security risk, should I have said too much in my 'mad ramblings.'"

I didn't get to see vampires gape often, so I made sure to relish the moment. Clearly he hadn't been expecting my response. He turned and stared at me for so long, I wondered if we were going to get into an accident.

"I honestly don't remember doing what I did to Andre," I said quickly, hoping he didn't think I'd done that intentionally. "I have... memory issues. But I _did_ grow up in the palace. I know how the game goes."

Northman seemed to recover and chuckled under his breath. "Any human living around vampires is bound to have _memory issues_."

I frowned, wishing I could fully explain without giving away that I couldn't be glamoured; I decided to go with something that was true, but only seemed to explain it. "They tell me that when I was eight, I saw my entire family—my father, mother, and older brother—die before my eyes. I don't remember any of it. My memory problems started months before I met my first vampire."

"What happened to your family?" he asked.

"We were all in the truck when a flash flood swept us off a bridge and into the river. They never even made it out of the car, from what I heard. I don't know how I got out; I don't remember that, either."

"How did you come to live at the palace?"

I shrugged. "I don't remember a lot about my childhood," I said, even though it wasn't _really_ an answer to his question. "My Gran used to cook for the donors." That, too, was a bit of a non sequitur, but he didn't have to know that.

"You're something of a rarity." The tone in his voice almost made him sound as if he were apologizing for asking so many questions. But that couldn't be right; vampires don't apologize. Not to humans, anyway.

"How so?" I asked, frowning slightly.

"You're a human who's more familiar with vampires than her own kind. If it's happened before, I've not heard of it. The only other possible exception _might _be Queen's telepath, but from what I've heard, he was raised amongst his own kind, whatever kind that might be."

I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he trying to get information out of me? Trip me up? He'd referred to the telepath as a male—I wasn't about to confirm or deny something as simple as gender. "I'm not supposed to talk about any of that," I finally said.

"But you know something about him, don't you?"

"I know that the Queen's telepath is such a closely guarded secret, any attempt to find out more information could be borderline treasonous."

He smiled. "I wasn't trying to get you into trouble. I was just making conversation. And I believe we were talking about you, up until you took us on a tangent."

Ye gods and little fishies. He was partially right: he'd brought up another example, I was the one who'd taken the bait. Vampires were so exhausting, sometimes. I sighed and resisted the urge to roll my eyes. We'd been driving for a while, and I just wanted to crawl under a rock and hide for a few days. At the very least, I wanted to not be in a car with anyone for very much longer. "Where are we going?"

"Back to the palace, of course. Where did you think we were going?"

For reasons I wasn't sure I quite understood, I blushed. "Um... I thought Mr Cataliades would take me back or maybe someone was coming to pick me up."

"Your lawyer is already back in New Orleans. Sophie-Anne wanted to make sure you had a more reliable escort this time, since you were able to escape a Were. How did you manage that, by the way?"

"I'm honestly not sure. I wanted to see my Gran's old house, so I went. The funeral was crowded, and it's not really the guard's fault that he lost me; I've been told I don't have much of a scent to follow."

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Why is what?" I was trying to play dumb.

He shot me a skeptical look; I don't think he was buying my feigned ignorance. "Why do you have no scent? You are fully human, yes?"

"Gran mapped out our family tree for Sophie-Anne; they looked into it, but they couldn't find anything."

That was something that was bugging me: Sophie-Anne had told me that fairies smell wonderful to vampires; if I was part-fairy, shouldn't I have some kind of scent? Not that I _wanted_ to send vampires into blood lust. In any case, I couldn't exactly ask that sort of question without a few eyebrows getting raised.

One of the things that had made it easy to work for Sophie-Anne was that I always felt I could confide in her. I could have told her anything. Now I was full of secrets, the likes of which I couldn't share.

I desperately wished I could turn the clock back. Just one week, that was all I'd need. One week, and I could warn Gran and she wouldn't die. One week, and I wouldn't have to figure out what to do with all of this new information about myself. One week, and my _today_ would have just been a normal night for me, not... whatever this was.

We drove in silence for a while, which suited me just fine. I wasn't really up for being social, especially with a vampire I didn't know very well—and one who had expressed interest in me. I _really_ didn't know how to handle that.

Every so often, my mind would go back to Gran. I knew I was nowhere near done grieving, but I also knew I wasn't going to do that in front of anyone. As hard as it was, I tried to set those emotions aside so that I could deal with them later. Even though I didn't know what to say, I needed some kind of distraction to get me through this.

"What time do you think we'll get there?" I asked.

"We have another three hours or so," he said.

I sighed. My options to make the time pass more quickly were to sleep or talk. My stomach was empty and my mind was full; that meant that sleep was out of the question. I could ignore a rumbly stomach for a few hours, especially considering that the idea of eating made me feel slightly nauseated.

"I'm sorry you got stuck doing this. You probably had better things to do tonight."

He looked at me and grinned. "Spending time with a pretty girl is _such_ a hardship for me."

Just then, his phone rang. After looking at the screen, he pressed a button and started talking rapidly in a language I wasn't familiar with. I only managed to catch one word, a name: Pamela. Northman was speaking in a calm tone, but somehow still sounded really pissed off. I wasn't sure if it was just an angry sounding language, or if he was one of those people that got quiet when they were mad.

When he hung up the phone, he was definitely not amused. He was muttering to himself in that strange language—not the actions of a happy vampire. I folded my hands on my lap and sat as still as possible, hoping to not attract any undue attention.

"How old are you, Sookie?" he asked, rather unexpectedly.

"Eighteen. How old are you, Northman?"

He laughed softly. "About a thousand, give or take a few decades. And you can call me Eric."

It felt strange to be so informal with a vampire other than Sophie-Anne or her children, but I responded with, "Okay, Eric."

Only a few minutes into my attempt to make the time pass, and I was already out of material. This was going to suck.

After a few minutes, he said, "You're a quiet one."

"Sometimes."

There wasn't a lot of room for a chatty pet in the palace. As I'd once heard one of the donors put it: keep your head down and your wrist out. I took the first half of that to heart; the second half didn't technically apply to me. Regardless, the only times I spoke freely were when I was spending private time with Gran or Sophie-Anne.

He grinned and turned to me, one eyebrow raised. "When are you _not_ quiet?"

Huh? That was kind of an odd question. "When I'm with Sophie-Anne, I guess."

I couldn't figure out why he was so amused by my response, he only laughed harder when he realized how confused I was. Was he mocking me? I took a deep breath and looked out the window, trying to stay calm.

"You're always welcome to be _not quiet_ with me," he said, once he'd finished laughing.

About to respond with a snarky come-back asking him what he thought we were doing, it suddenly dawned on me that we were having two _very_ different conversations. My face burned so hot that when I hid it behind my hands, they felt vampire-cold in comparison.

"We're not talking about _talking_, are we?" I asked, my voice sounding somewhat muffled.

His wicked laugh was all the answer I needed. "You really are one of the strangest pets I've ever met, Sookie Stackhouse," he said.

* * *

><p>Conversation with Eric got easier as the time passed. He had apparently come to some conclusions about me; whatever they were, he didn't tease me quite so much. He seemed to be a natural flirt, so any flirting he did came across as more incidental than intentional. He asked about life at the palace—not in the sense of trying to get important information, but rather: how did I like living there (I had nowhere else to compare it to); what did I do to pass my free time (I couldn't tell him that I didn't really have any, so: reading, watching old movies); that sort of thing.<p>

It was probably one of the strangest conversations I'd ever had. No one ever asked me that kind of stuff before; the people who knew me already had the answers to those questions, and it wasn't often that I met and got to converse freely with new folks.

When we were about half an hour away, he gave me a choice of how I wanted to be brought in: unconscious, or kicking and screaming. I was shocked until I remembered suggesting that I should be visibly distressed when I came back.

"I don't think I have the energy for a tantrum," I said wearily. "How would you knock me out? I don't think I'd like to be hit."

"I would never hit you," he said, his voice a bit frosty with indignation. "Are you hit often?"

"No one's ever raised a hand to me," I said, feeling just as indignant as he'd sounded a second ago. "And I'd like to keep it that way."

"Chloroform it is, then."

"Chloro-what?"

He reached over me and into the glove compartment, where he pulled out a clear plastic bag with a white cloth in it. He moved more quickly than I could see, but the last thing I caught before my vision faded to black was that white cloth, right in front of my face.

It felt like I'd blinked, but I could tell I wasn't in the car with Eric any more. I was laying down on something soft, and there were people talking around me—and about me.

Ironically, I really hated eavesdropping when I was the one being discussed.

The effects of the chloro-whatever that Eric had used were still pulling at me. I dove back into unconsciousness, grateful for the escape of a drugged and dreamless sleep.


	8. The Great Wall of Sookie

A/N: As you will see in this chapter, Sookie is not "fine" after Gran's death. No, I haven't written long, drawn-out descriptions detailing her pain—nor would I. That's not my style. If you want angst, I'm afraid you're reading not only the wrong _story_, but the wrong _author_.

When someone has an experience (or hell, an entire childhood) that's traumatic enough for them to block out chunks of it, it's not unheard of (or all that uncommon) for them to partake in a fair amount of denial and avoidance.

This Sookie has grown up in a sheltered environment where her education was selectively and specifically limited. This series of stories explores how she comes into her own; it's largely about the development of her character. If it bothers you that she isn't yet who she is supposed to be: again, you may get more enjoyment out of another story and/or another author.

* * *

><p>After I woke up, Sophie-Anne told me privately that she was grateful for the minor subterfuge that Northman and I had pulled off. After he'd knocked me out, he had taken my hands and used my nails to scratch at his own face. I cringed, just thinking about it. Thank goodness they had already cleaned me up; I thought I would be ill if I found any pieces of vampire stuck under my nails.<p>

I had gotten a reputation as someone who went for the eyes. While I wasn't exactly proud of that, Sophie-Anne and I both benefited from it.

It was explained that I'd experienced temporary insanity from grief—something vampires were no stranger to, although when they lost their marbles, it tended be to a far more permanent thing. The fact that I appeared to come back from the brink of madness made them look at me in a different light.

That I had "flown at vampires in a fit of passion" indicated that I was feisty, and therefore probably great in the sack. People took that as sufficient explanation for why Sophie-Anne would have a pet with no scent or taste. She was still praised for my training, but even more so now because she was said to be the only person who could control me.

In other words, the whole thing served to make people stop suspecting that the Queen only kept me around because I was the telepath.

Vampires are the original spin doctors.

Publicly, things were peachy keen.

Privately? Not so much.

No one seriously thought I was insane. My brain was just wired to blank out when I was under extreme duress. I underwent a number of medical tests to determine if there were any underlying issues, even though Dr Ludwig protested, saying it was unnecessary. After all, I'd had no small amount of vampire blood. If that wasn't going to cure whatever ailed me, then whatever ailed me was incurable.

Dr Ludwig went so far as to state that if I was going to benefit from any sort of treatment, it would be of the psychological or even psychiatric variety. There was one pretty large problem with that: I wouldn't be able to tell them that I was the telepath. Without being able to give full disclosure, what was the point?

When all else failed or fell through, it was decided that maybe I should be encouraged to work out my issues through physical means. Gladiola started coming by regularly to give me self-defense lessons. After learning how to do it safely, we sparred just about every other day.

When I expressed an interest, she received permission to train me in sword fighting. We never used real swords, but she brought in some wooden ones for us to practice with.

I don't know if Gran would have recognized me, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

Something about having to deal with her death made me stronger. It made me feel like I had to be more self-reliant. There was only so much I could do in that regard, being largely unable to leave the palace.

Sophie-Anne had lost a lot of trust in me. My little trip to Gran's farmhouse after the funeral was seen as an escape attempt. As she saw it, I only came back because I had no other alternatives. Due to the circumstances, I couldn't exactly explain myself.

To deal with the trust issues, and as my public punishment, I was basically put under house arrest. The guards kept a closer watch on me; I was under 24- hour surveillance, no matter where I was in the building. If I wanted to leave the palace, even if it was just to take a walk on the grounds, I had to wear a tracking device that could be locked around my ankle and be accompanied by at least two Weres or one vampire—depending on what time of day or night it was.

Most of that was kind of moot. I never really went anywhere, and I figured that I was always being watched—unless I was behind a mirror or in one of the safe rooms. But those non-watched areas didn't have any outside exits, so they couldn't be used for escaping.

The aspect of those security measures that really stung was that I couldn't really speak freely with Mr Cataliades. Sophie-Anne wouldn't keep me from talking with him, but I desperately wanted to ask him about Fintan, and I didn't think that was a conversation we could have within the palace walls.

Between her diminished trust in me and my inability to tell her everything, a wall came up between me and Sophie-Anne. It felt to me as if I hadn't just lost Gran. I had lost my only other friend.

Andre kept his distance—not because he was afraid of me, but because Sophie-Anne had ordered it. He did tell me that he bore me no ill will, but any affection or concern he might have had for me was gone. He didn't love or hate me: he was indifferent to my presence. There wasn't any way to recover from that, as far as I could tell.

My relationship with the Berts didn't change; they still adored me just as much as I did them. But we still couldn't really talk about anything.

Gladiola and I got along very well, but she wasn't much for talking. When she did, it was short, fast, and to the point; if I didn't think it might have offended her, I would have asked if English wasn't her first language. Conversations between us tended to be fairly limited. Sometimes I wondered if she were friendly with me out of an obligation to her uncle.

I found myself avoiding the suite of rooms that Gran and I had shared. It was the only place I could remember calling my own, such as it was, but that meant that memories of Gran were embedded into every last inch of it. One day I had to get something out of her bathroom, and the smell of the face powder she'd used brought on tears that I didn't realize I had left.

About two months after Gran's death, Mr C helped me get a new room assignment, and arranged it so that all of Gran's belongings were put into a storage locker in the basement. My new room was as close as any human's room could be to Sophie-Anne's, whose chambers were located in a more secure part of the palace. If it had been known that I was the telepath, my room would have been in that area as well, but my anonymity gave me more security than any locked door ever could.

My new room was small—roughly eight by ten feet—but it wasn't bad. I decided I wanted it to be light and airy, so I painted the walls a soft yellow. My comforter was white with a pattern of big yellow daffodils. I had to have light-tight fittings over the window, but I hid those behind some flowy curtains. The room wasn't as close to the kitchen, but I had a small dorm fridge for snacks and drinks. All in all, it was pretty comfortable, and since almost everything in it was new, I figured it was as close to a fresh start as I was ever going to get.

One day, about three months after I'd moved into my new room, Glads and I were in the sparring room, doing just that. She didn't really train me in any particular style, saying that each one had its weaknesses. Instead, she taught me how to fight dirty: hair-pulling, nut-punching, eye-gouging... it was all fair game. Ideally, this was stuff I'd never need to know, but if I ever used it, it would be to defend myself, not to win any titles.

The sort of things I learned wouldn't keep me safe from vampires; they were so much stronger than even the beefiest of humans. Sophie-Anne could crush a person's pinky between her index finger and thumb without breaking a sweat. I'd seen her do it. Glads told me that when demons fought, they tended to use a mixture of physical and magical abilities, and that there wasn't much I could do against that. Weres weren't as strong as vampires, but were stronger than humans; regardless, they'd just shift to their animal form for a fight. There wasn't much I could do against teeth and claws, and it was unlikely I'd ever get into a fight with a were-chicken.

Those _do_ exist, by the way. Don't ever ask them if they came first. It's a touchy subject.

Given that I was still mostly defenseless against supernatural beings and that I was never left alone with unglamoured humans, I didn't figure I'd ever really need the things I was learning. Life at the palace was about as safe as it got. In the short-term, it helped me blow off some steam; more than a few punching bags had to be replaced after I'd used them to work through some pent-up emotions. More than once, Glads had to carry me back to my room because I'd broken down crying and was unable to collect myself.

Long-term, I found that some aspect of what I was doing was helping to give me more self-confidence. Maybe it was because I had some sort of outlet for my frustrations. Maybe it was because I felt that if something bad happened to me, at least I wouldn't go down without putting up a good fight. Maybe it was just some chemical process in my body that got all fired up from a good work out several times a week.

Whatever the case, I enjoyed the results.

Glads and I had just finished our warm-up stretches when Sophie-Anne came into the room.

"Gladiola, your uncle requires your assistance," she said as she stepped out of her heels. The demon shrugged, then grinned and waved at me as she left the room. I smiled at her, then turned my attention towards Sophie-Anne...

...who was rolling her head on her neck and bouncing on the balls of her feet, as if she and I were about to throw down.

Uh. What?

I blinked.

"So you and Gladiola were about to spar? What style?" she asked as she cracked her knuckles.

I shrugged. "She hasn't been teaching me a style. It's pretty much free for all, anything goes."

She smiled. "Excellent. Bring it. Let me see what you can do."

Let me step back and paint a picture here.

Sophie-Anne was dressed in a floor length, strapless, dark blue satin gown. Her red hair was perfectly coiffed into a french twist, and her make up was also expertly applied. She looked like she was about to pose for a magazine cover.

I, on the other hand, was wearing a black sports bra and lime green spandex shorts. My hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and I had already begun to perspire slightly. I would probably get her dirty just by breathing too closely.

"Are you sure? " I asked.

She gave me a flat stare that said, more than words could have, that she was quite sure.

I shrugged and launched myself at her. I have no idea what she did, but about a second later, I was picking myself up off the floor and she was checking under her fingernails for dirt.

"Interesting approach," she said, smiling down at me as I glared up at her, "but I don't see what good it would do you."

"There's no way I'll ever be faster than you. What do you want me to do here?" I asked as I stood up.

"I want you to treat me as you would your enemy."

"That's what I _was_ doing," I insisted.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "That's how you've treated your allies. I want to see how you treat your enemies. Surely you recognize there's a difference between the two concepts."

Ouch. "Not fair, Sophie-Anne. I've never attacked anyone while I was in my right mind."

She snorted. "I never claimed to be fair. I'll grant that you've only ever _physically_ lashed out when you were in distress, but you've been fighting me for months, and I'm tired of it. So we're having this out right here, right now. If we have to get down to the mats to do it, so be it."

Sighing, I flopped back down to the floor, crossed my legs, and rubbed my face with my hands. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted her to ask her if she'd ever heard of Fintan. I wanted to ask her if she knew why my fairy-laced blood had no scent or taste. I wanted to spill my guts and confess every last sin, real and imagined.

"I don't like this distance between us, either," I said quietly. "But I don't know what to do about it."

"Even saying that much is as good a start as any," she said, just as quietly, as she perched on a nearby yoga ball. "You're stronger than you realize; you always have been. You're not as strong as me, and never will be. Individually, neither of us is as strong as both of us are, combined. Change is in the wind, Sookie. Soon enough, vampires will reveal themselves to the world, and we have to be ready for whatever comes up."

My eyes went wide. "The announcement isn't just a rumor, then?"

"Sadly, no. It really is going to happen, and soon. Within six months, from what I've been told. I'm going to need you then more than ever before."

After a few minutes of quiet, I said, "There's stuff I can't talk about."

"I figured as much. It was bound to happen eventually."

Somewhat startled, I looked up at her. "You're not upset with me?"

"For having your own secrets?" She laughed. "Of course not. Everyone has them. Why do you think I never had you learn any other languages? I needed to know that I could keep secrets from you, even if you were in the same room. I have things that no one will ever know. Things I've never told _Andre_, and I trust him more than I've ever trusted anyone else, living or dead. Sure, I'd like to know every thought that runs through your pretty blonde head, but then there'd be no mystery. I can't imagine how dull humans must be for you in particular."

I thought about that for a minute. "That's a good point. I always figured I just found vampires more interesting because, well, you're vampires. I do still wonder about humans, sometimes. Mostly along the lines of what made them the way they are; their motivations, I guess you'd say. But there's infinitely more to wonder about vampires, since I can't get a thing from any of you."

Sophie-Anne didn't respond immediately. Her gaze seemed to be turned inward. "It was a very long time ago, back when I was human, and I haven't thought about it in... oh, centuries, perhaps... but I can still remember the day I realized there was something I couldn't tell my own mother. It made me so sad. Mothers are like gods—or goddesses, I suppose—to their little girls. My secret wasn't anything bad, but still I thought she would be so disappointed in me for keeping something from her."

"it's weird. I mean, it's kind of my job to tell you everything. I feel like..."

She interrupted me. "It's not a betrayal, Sookie. I expect you to tell me everything about everyone _else_. And hell, even then it's just the humans and Weres."

"_I'm_ human," I protested glumly, silently wondering if I still qualified as such, since I was part-fairy.

"Hmph. Jury's still out on that one. I don't know what you are, but you're not like any other human I've met in my thirteen-hundred years. But you're not like anyone I've met of any race or species, so who knows?"

I did. But I couldn't tell her.

"Come on," she said, holding her hand out to me. "Let's get you cleaned up and then we'll get us both fed."

I took her hand and let her help me up. She didn't let go, and so we walked to my room, hand in hand. It wasn't a resolution to our problems, but already I was feeling better than I had in weeks.


	9. Calm before the storm

It wound up getting delayed, but what the human world eventually referred to as the Great Revelation took place the year I turned twenty. The months leading up to it were a flurry of preparation.

Sophie-Anne and I got through it fairly well. I wound up getting some secretarial training (not many people knew shorthand anymore, but vampires seemed to like it even more for that very reason) so that I could appear publicly as the Queen's personal assistant and not raise too many eyebrows.

Apparently the primary impetus for the vampires "coming out of the coffin"—a ridiculous phrase if I'd ever heard one; I don't think there was a single vampire in the palace who chose to sleep in one of those things—was that Japanese scientists had managed to create synthetic blood. According to the vampires that tested it, it looked, acted, tasted, and smelled a lot like the real thing. They'd even managed to come up with different flavors, or as a medical professional would have called them, blood types.

Sophie-Anne met with some of the scientists; we ran into some difficulties that we couldn't address openly: they spoke perfect English, but their thoughts were entirely in Japanese. I could hear their thoughts quite clearly, but couldn't understand a single word. There was no way to run it through a translator. I had trouble with their body language as well: their culture was so different from any that I had run into, I had no idea how to interpret their postures and movements, and not enough time to study and learn.

I was being exposed to more and more humans. There was no avoiding it. We figured that after the announcement, no matter how it went, there would be enterprising humans who would jump on the chance to create and manufacture unique products for vampires—and charge exorbitant prices, naturally. Sophie-Anne figured that even though she had a good head for business, my abilities would wind up saving her millions of dollars.

As glad as I was to help, it took a lot out of me. I was almost constantly exhausted, and it got harder and harder to keep my secret job a secret. After talking about it at great length—between ourselves and with Mr Cataliades—Sophie-Anne and I decided to go ahead with a full blood bond.

There were many benefits to this, for both of us.

We no longer had to pretend to share blood behind the closed doors of secure rooms. Less subterfuge was a good thing: it meant there was less to worry about. The more lies you tell, the more you have to remember who knows what. With my memory issues, I was surprised that I'd been able to keep such a big secret for so long. Granted, I did have a lot of help in that regard.

As bland as my blood was, Sophie-Anne found that it kept her sated longer than normal human blood. This did encourage her belief that I was at least partially non-human, but she still had no idea what that other part might have been. I, of course, feigned ignorance on the matter.

While I still didn't quite like the taste of blood, I found that drinking hers helped me maintain my shields and keep exhaustion at bay. This might sound crude, but it was better than any energy drink out there.

We learned that it was easier for me to block her than it was for her to block me; I suspected it was because I had more practice with mental shields. If she had any other theories, she kept them to herself.

Since we both valued our privacy, neither of us took it personally when the other one closed up the connection for a few hours. I didn't need to know what she was feeling at all hours of the night, and there were times when I didn't need her to know what I was feeling. If she'd blocked it off and I needed to talk with her, I could "ping" against her shields—a term we'd picked up from some movie about submarines—to get her attention.

It was all very touch and go at first: we were making up the rules as we went along, doing what we could to not irritate or upset each other. After laying the ground rules and fine tuning things, we had a very comfortable and respectful blood bond.

The bond itself brought us closer together, but not in a sexual way. If anything, Sophie-Anne encouraged me to partake in _some_ kind of romantic endeavors, even if it wasn't with her. I think she was baffled by the idea that I was still willingly a virgin at the ripe old age of twenty. She'd point out various vampires (and even a handful of Weres, surprisingly enough) that she approved of; she would tell me which of them would be good if all I wanted was sex, and which of them would be good if I wanted something more.

It wasn't that I thought my virginity was something special that I needed to save. It was more that my life was already complicated enough. If I had sex and liked it, I'd miss it when I wasn't getting any; with everything that was going on, I couldn't afford to be distracted by the gnawings of a dry spell. There was something to be said for not knowing what you were missing.

There was also the fact that whoever I was with, it would be pretty blatantly obvious at first that I had no idea what I was doing. As I told Sophie-Anne, it could seriously blow my cover—no pun intended.

I did have some physical intimacy with Sophie-Anne, but it wasn't of the sexual variety. I wouldn't call her snuggly, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she liked for me to lay my head on her lap so that she could run her fingers through my hair. We both found some kind of comfort in that; for me, it reminded me of how Gran used to do something similar with me when I was a child.

I noticed she had a tendency to mute the bond on her end during those times; I didn't ask why, and she didn't bring it up. We'd learned early on to respect those moments of quiet.

* * *

><p>One night, Sophie-Anne and I were sitting in her receiving room, enjoying a rare moment of calm before the upcoming storm that we knew the announcement would be. Even if it went relatively well, it would still be a media frenzy and a security nightmare.<p>

It was all supposed to take place in a matter of days, and while we were fairly certain that things wouldn't get _too_ out of hand in New Orleans, we weren't sure how the rest of the world would handle the news.

New Orleans was, after all, the setting for a number of fictional vampire stories. There was already a vampire mystique to the place. From what I heard, the locals were just as likely to shrug as they were to give a knowing grin and proclaim that they'd "known it all along." Of course there would be people who freaked out. Sophie-Anne said that no matter how open a culture was, there would always be individuals who fear the unknown. Ironically, those types of folks tended to keep themselves shrouded in ignorance, so more was unknown to them than to people with more open minds.

Sophie-Anne had just fed from me, and I was relaxing in the afterglow—as it turned out, I did _not_ need to be glamoured for the experience to be highly pleasurable. She was sitting at one end of the couch; I was lying on my side, curled up on the couch with my head in her lap, her fingernails lightly scratching at my scalp.

In some kind of odd déjà vu, Eric Northman was shown into the room. This time I could see him, and I watched as he walked towards us; he remained standing until Sophie-Anne gestured for him to sit. As vampires are wont to do, he largely ignored my presence.

The two ancient vampires talked in another language, but in relaxed tones. There was no urgency this time around. She'd had similar meetings with the other Louisiana sheriffs earlier in the week; I guessed they were just having a final review of various plans and strategies for the upcoming announcements.

During their conversation, she said a few things that seemed to give him pause. I had trouble interpreting his reaction: it looked like he was simultaneously pleased and displeased. Ordinarily I wouldn't think twice about that, but he'd also given me an odd look. That, combined with the fact that none of the other sheriffs had any reactions along those lines, got me wondering. I let my curiosity be known in the bond, and figured that if she had a mind to do so, Sophie-Anne would tell me later what that was all about.

Later, after he had left the room, Sophie-Anne spoke up. "We haven't discussed this, mostly because I didn't want to upset you, but also because even if the Revelation doesn't go well, we have multiple escape plans. It's highly unlikely that I will be meeting my final death anytime soon. It's more possible—but still unlikely—that something might happen to cause you and I to get temporarily separated. I was letting Northman know that should anything happen to me, or should you and I get split up, I am putting you under his protection."

I sat up so that I could look at her.

"What about the Berts? Or Andre?"

"Should something happen to me, it is likely that something would have also happened to them. And if they were unharmed, they would have their own objectives."

Meaning that they would give their lives fighting off whoever would try to kill Sophie-Anne. She would only die if they were already gone. And if she died before they did, their focus would be to exact revenge, even if it wound up bringing them to their own final deaths.

A chill ran through me. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them.

"How dangerous do you think all of this will really be?"

"There's no telling. In the past, humans have gone on various campaigns to kill those that they suspected of devilry or witchcraft. Things are different now, at least on the surface. Now we have movies about vampires that portray us as alluring and desirable, rather than ghoulish, soulless monsters. There are romance novels with vampire _pro_tagonists. We're no longer objects of terror used to keep frightened children in their beds at night. Some humans will embrace us, others will react as their forefathers did; it's just a question of ratios."

That was all well and good, but, "That doesn't really answer my question. What do _you_ think is going to happen?"

She smirked. "I haven't lived this long by accident. I'm hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. So," she continued, her smirk getting wider, "in the _highly _unlikely scenario that Andre, the Berts and I are all dusted, you get to be Northman's pet."

Much to my dismay, I blushed.

"No wonder you haven't been interested in any of the others I've been pointing out. You've taken a _liking_ to the _Viking_."

Trying to maintain some semblance of dignity, I cleared my throat and sat up a bit straighter. "I have no reason to _dis_like him."

She rolled her eyes at me. "Please. You'd hit that with a running start."

I gaped, then blinked at the mental images conjured by her bizarre turn of phrase. She never used that kind of slang when there was anyone else around, but she liked to spring those sorts of things on me because she enjoyed my reactions.

"Okay..." I admitted reluctantly, drawing the word out. "Maybe I would. But you know, if I wind up with him because something's happened to you? I think I'm going to be a little too upset to start jumping his bones."

"Nonsense. Sookie, life is for the living. Or the unliving, as the case may be. If I die? Sure, go ahead and shed a tear or two for me, if you feel compelled to do so. But then get on with things. I've had thirteen-hundred years—and hopefully I'll have another thirteen-hundred more—but if I meet my final death tomorrow...?" She paused and shrugged. "It's not like I'll be around to be mad about it. Your life is already too short; it'd be a real shame if you wasted it."

If Sophie-Anne wasn't around, what would I _do_? I was her telepath. I didn't know how to really do much else—I didn't think "pretending to _not_ be a telepath" counted, in the grand scheme of things. So would I work for Eric? What did a sheriff do? Would he even need a telepath?

Something occurred to me. "Wait... you said you were putting me under Eric's protection," I said, ignoring the way she'd raised her eyebrows at my use of his first name. "You didn't tell him...?"

"No. He knows that you're my favorite pet, and that you've never really lived outside the palace."

I knew Eric knew that about me, but I wasn't sure if it was because of what I'd said, or because Sophie-Anne had told him as well. She was aware that I hadn't been drugged for the entire ride back from Bon Temps after Gran's funeral, but if she knew anything about the conversations that Eric and I had, it wasn't because I'd told her. I had no idea what information he'd given her about my retrieval, other than the story we'd concocted to save face.

I snorted. "What, so you told him that I couldn't just be released back into the wild or something?"

Sophie-Anne threw her head back and laughed. "Something like that. If I meet my final death, I believe you could trust him with your secret. But at that point, whether or not you tell him would be solely your decision."

I didn't want to think any more about the possibility that something might happen to my best friend; it was time for a subject change. "Have you decided on whether or not you want me with you on the night of the Revelation?"

That was something Sophie-Anne had been debating for a several weeks. If I was with her, then I could provide useful information about the humans around her, but I risked exposure; if I was kept in a safe and secure location, then obviously I and my secret would be safe, but I would be unable to provide her with information that might keep her safe.

"I think I've come up with a compromise," she responded.

That didn't make sense. "Um, how?"

"My panic room. We'll stash you in there and make sure the room we set up for the press is within your range."

"Panic room?"

"It's a secret and secure room, surrounded by concrete and lined with Kevlar sheeting. It's got its own air filtration system, communications and monitoring system, and—since this is New Orleans—it is flood-proof, fire-proof, and requires special codes to get in and out."

"Yeah, I know what they are, but I didn't know you had one. When did you set it up? Or has it always been there?"

"I had it set up a few years ago. It's got a hidden entrance, which is why you've been unaware of it. Anyway, I'll have a cell phone on me, and you can text me anything I need to know. We'll go through everything beforehand so that you know how to use the computers in the room."

"So all the cool rich kids are getting panic rooms, these days?" I asked.

"Not to be crude, Sookie darling, but I'm the fucking Queen." The smile and the twinkle in her eye made her out to be teasing instead of mean. "You don't know the extent to which I take my security seriously."

I stuck my tongue out at her. "So I get to hang out in some high-tech bunker while everything goes down? I'm not sure if that's awesome or slightly terrifying."

"It's the safest of all possible options, but it's mostly a precaution. I'm not concerned; we've done everything we can to cover our fine, dead asses. Enough about this," she said, waving her hand as if to brush away the conversation. "How long have you had a crush on the Northman? Tell me _everything_."

With a groan, i rubbed my hands over my face. I could tell she wasn't going to let this one go.


	10. Epilogue: The Great Revelation

The night of the Great Revelation was complete and utter pandemonium.

The announcement was made on just about every major television station in existence. Radio stations, too. It was extremely well-coordinated. In the days that followed, stories were told of people in the streets who had packed themselves into crowded bars, restaurants—really, any store with a functioning television—to watch the breaking news reports telling them that yes, vampires really do exist.

Even though I'd grown up around them and knew that vampires weren't all that uncommon, I think it didn't hit me until that night just how many of them there really were. As Gran might say, the world was far bigger than my small corner of it.

Sophie-Anne had set up a press room within easy mind-reading distance of the panic room, where I was safely tucked away. For almost two hours, Sophie-Anne stood at a podium and answered questions about vampires. Andre handled the questions about the new synthetic blood, since he'd been the one to try it. The Berts stood guard and looked grumpy.

Two reporters wound up having to be detained during all of this; it was mostly a "better safe than sorry" call on my part: one of them was wondering about how many different ways vampires could be killed, and the other was pretty quickly convinced that vampires were the reason his wife was cheating on him. At worst, the latter was insane; at best, he might have had some jealousy issues that I didn't want him taking out on my people. In any case, they were eventually released just outside the palace gates, unharmed but lightly glamoured.

I really wasn't comfortable with the idea of my Queen being out in front of such a large crowd. She assured me that she was well protected. She had the element of surprise on her side; while humans might have suspected the existence of vampires over the years, they were ignorant about vampiric abilities. They had no idea how fast a vampire as old as Sophie-Anne could move. If someone shot at her, she could easily travel twenty feet between when she heard the bullet leave the chamber and when it could have hit her if she hadn't moved at all. Besides, she said, as long as she wasn't decapitated or staked through the heart, she could recover from anything.

I had no use for her logic; I still didn't like it. I was pretty certain that Andre and the Berts agreed with me, but they knew better than to argue with her repeatedly about it—something I had no qualms over, so long as we were in private. I would never argue with her in front of anyone; I loved her too much to disrespect her in that way. I wouldn't even do it in front of her own children, although I'm sure they were aware that I'd done so on more than one occasion.

I watched Sophie-Anne's press conference on one of the monitors in the panic room. As much as I wanted to check out some other news stations to see how the rest of the world was taking the news, I needed to be able to focus on my own job. My Queen's safety was a far higher priority. The more important network broadcasts were being taped by someone in the palace, so we could watch them all later if we were so inclined.

Throughout the evening, each of the Area sheriffs checked in at their specified times. It was just about every other hour, but with slightly staggered times so that we didn't miss any of their calls. I wasn't the one answering the phones, but one of the monitors—there really were almost a dozen of the damn things in that room—was displaying a log of all of the palace's incoming and outgoing calls.

I didn't have time to evaluate the strange relief I felt every time I saw the number with the Shreveport area code pop up on the incoming call list.

An hour before sunset, the palace was once again safe, emptied of all strange humans (who was I kidding—all humans were kind of strange) and we had ourselves a not-so-little party. It was a celebration for having gotten through the night relatively unscathed.

We really were lucky. Other parts of the world didn't take the news so well. Some of the vampire announcers in the Middle East and parts of Africa were taken out by angry mobs when they tried to leave the news station buildings. A few nutjobs in Utah decided that it was the end of the world and killed off their entire families before killing themselves.

Then there were the people who went crazy in the other direction. In some cities in the States (most notably: New Orleans, Chicago and, oddly enough, some small town in New York called Caldwell), hordes of women (and some men as well) ran around desperately baring their wrists and necks at anyone they suspected might be a vampire.

More than a few vampires in those cities were very well-fed, that night. The humans seemed surprised to learn that there were no casualties amongst those willing donors.

As the hours turned into nights, and the nights turned into weeks, the reaction of the general public changed and shifted. Back and forth it went, swaying between positive and negative.

Sophie-Anne likened it to a pendulum that had only recently been set into motion. The reactions would swing to one extreme, then the other, then back again. With each swing, those reactions would be less and less extreme, until finally they evened out. Sometimes a random event would give the pendulum a slight push in one direction, but it would never revert to the wild swinging of the initial announcement. It took time for that pattern to really be visible to me, but I was greatly comforted when I realized just how right she'd been.

Still, there were a few things I didn't quite like.

Willing donors, while goofy in their own ways, tended to be amongst the nicer humans I'd met. A fair bit of the public reaction to them was highly negative. They were called fangbangers, which I felt was a remarkably crass term. Since no one knew any different, I got lumped into that category.

The first time it happened was after a "dinner" that Sophie-Anne had taken me to. It was some vampire-human relations thing, but it barely qualified as an actual dinner. It took place shortly after the Great Revelation, so the people who organized it weren't entirely up on their protocols. Rather than offend anyone—be it vampires by serving human food, or humans by serving synthetic blood—the organizers opted to not serve _any_ food or refreshments. (Of course, in so doing, they managed to offend everyone, since we were told it was a _dinner_, but were then sent home hungry.)

I had gone to the event with Sophie-Anne, as both her pet and her personal assistant. Keeping track of all of the human minds during the event had worn me out, and somehow I didn't catch the thoughts of a roving pack of paparazzi that was waiting outside. They got pictures of Sophie-Anne and me as we were leaving, arm in arm.

Somehow, people were more scandalized by the idea that Sophie-Anne might be a _lesbian _than they were by the fact that she was a _vampire_.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it until I'm blue in the face: humans are strange.

When she'd shown me the article, it really bothered me. It was a nice picture of the two of us, but the reporter had called me a _fangbanger_. I had a good cry on Sophie-Anne's lap and felt better afterwards, but it took a while before the word didn't make me cringe.

Humans and vampires alike profited from the Great Revelation. Eric Northman opened the first vampire bar in the state, but it didn't take long before others caught on to the idea. He would probably never know how much I'd helped him out with getting Fangtasia up and running. He'd petitioned the Queen to make use of her telepath; since the club would be a front for his sheriff duties, he needed to make sure it was secure. It was a legit request, but very sneaky.

At the palace, we had special interview rooms where I could just hide behind a panel of mirrored glass. I could see them, they couldn't see me. I had speakers that broadcast everything that was said in the room, and I had a microphone that distorted my voice before piping it though to the other side. The entrance to my part of the room was hidden and not monitored on any camera.

Naturally, the waitresses and dancers who were applying to work at a bar in Shreveport weren't interested in driving to the other end of the state to interview for their jobs, even if it _was_ a vampire bar. I watched Eric and Sophie-Anne as they negotiated my services. He had no idea that the telepath was in the room, listening to every word of their negotiations. Some of it was in French, but not all of it.

Eventually they agreed to neutral territory. I still had to go to Shreveport, but the interviews would _not_ be held in Eric's not-yet-opened club. He wasn't too pleased about that, but he agreed to let Sophie-Anne's security figure out how and where the interviews would be held.

I hadn't done an outside job in years. It'd been so long, we had to review the security procedures. When I joked that we should just put an interview room on wheels, Sophie-Anne took the idea to heart.

We wound up tricking out a tour bus. In the very back there was a section that was part panic room, part interview room. All sides of it were protected by bullet-proof Lexan; the one side of it that faced the front of the bus was specially designed: it had a one-way mirror embedded in it. From the outside, you couldn't tell that it was any different from any other tour bus out there.

Inside, I had a bed, two monitors (with views that could be fixed or rotating), a separate ventilation system, a wireless speaker/microphone system that allowed safe communication, and a small fridge that kept me stocked with food and beverages. It even had its own tiny little bathroom; that was how I knew it had been designed for me specifically; if it had been one of Sophie-Anne's cast-offs, they wouldn't have bothered with a toilet.

It was all pretty fancy. I almost wanted to go on tour with that thing. At first, anyway. After the second night, I was more than a little stir-crazy. Thankfully, once the interviews were taking place, I had lots of minds to read. The busier I was, the faster time flew by.

There was something kind of neat about being able to watch Eric and his employees in their own natural habitat. He only had one child, a woman named Pam—or _Pamela_ whenever Eric got frustrated with her, which appeared to be often. He seemed more relaxed in his own space, even though he was well aware that there were cameras in his office that were feeding directly into my monitors.

I knew this for a fact because the cheeky vampire waved at the camera on more than one occasion. He was like a kid with a new toy. Even if he couldn't take the telepath out and play with him (he was apparently convinced that the Queen's telepath was a male), he still got to make use of my services.

The most difficult part of the whole thing actually came weeks later, when Sophie-Anne and I attended the grand opening. I had to pretend like I hadn't seen any of it before, like I had no idea who the people who worked there were. It turned out to be more difficult than I'd thought. Doing the interviews and essentially spying on Fangtasia for a few days had gotten me pretty interested in its progress.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't what I saw. The colors were red and black, with occasional bits of gold trim. On the walls were posters of just about every vampire movie in existence. Some of them looked pretty old, and I wondered if they'd been purchased for the club or if Eric had been collecting them over the years.

Sophie-Anne had some serious mingling to do, and while everyone knew I was her pet, she didn't want to make me seem too important. She stashed me in one of the nicer booths and went off with Andre to make the rounds. One of the waitresses made sure I always had plenty to drink; aside from her, no one really paid me any attention. That meant I could people-watch to my heart's content.

In front of me were dozens of humans and vampires, mingling, flirting, drinking (out of glasses, not necks) and generally having a good time. On the surface, everyone was polite smiles, interested nods, and flirtatious banter. Just under that thin social veneer was the usual political maneuvering and jockeying for position. I suspected that the humans present mostly saw the thin surface; they were too new to these waters to know how deep they really ran.

Gran used to say that you couldn't learn to swim from watching movies about it, that the only way to learn how to keep your head above water was to get tossed into the deep end.

I had been born into one world and was raised in another. In some ways, I didn't really belong in either. Now those two worlds were coming together, merging at least a little. It was a given that my life would be changing, because that's what lives _do_. If you aren't changing, then regardless of whether or not you have a pulse, you aren't really living.

I sat, sipped my soda, and wondered what other changes the future held in store for me.

* * *

><p>AN: Yes, this really is the epilogue for this story. The sequel is fully outlined and the first four (out of ten) chapters are already first-drafted. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can start posting them. Consider this an intermission between acts. :)


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